


Where Wicked Was

by GreenVeal



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Body Horror, But until then, Dehuminization, Demon Matt Murdock, Demonic Possession, Eventual Fluff, Gen, Hand ninjas, Hurt/Comfort, I’m just going hogwild, Platonic Bed Sharing, Shadowlands, Western Esotericism, shadowlands Au, some version of shadowlands is happening here but it’s def not 616 shadowlands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2020-03-09 18:50:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 30,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18922966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenVeal/pseuds/GreenVeal
Summary: Matt is manipulated and transformed by The Hand after being deemed a perfect host for The Beast.When the demon is exorcised from his body, Matt disappears.He’s not gone, just different.





	1. Five Fingers

**Author's Note:**

> I’m pretty sure The Beast is never mentioned/alluded to in the TV show, so here’s a Wiki article.
> 
> https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Beast_(Demon)_(Earth-616)
> 
> Basically it’s the demonic entity that leads The Hand. (And ‘occupation: nihilist’ is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.)  
> I’d link the wiki article for Shadowlands, but, A: it’s flat out wrong in some places, and B: this fic is pretty standalone, it still makes sense if you’ve just seen the tv show, I made sure of that.

There was a traffic jam outside, a Honda Civic had veered to the right and collided with the concrete base of a streetlamp. It wasn’t a disaster, just an inconvenience, nobody was injured- even if all the noise suggested otherwise. Engines murmured, horns blasted, humans yelled, and sirens blared from some distance away. That caterwauling combined with the sound of the wind whipping bits of Honda shrapnel across the cement to create an altogether atrocious racket.

Foggy Nelson peered down on the scene from his kitchen window, only paying half a mind to the toast he was buttering. He figured the accident hadn’t even been the fault of the guy who crashed; the wind had probably blown him off course. Maybe it was the driver’s fault then, Foggy couldn’t imagine anyone rational driving in weather like this.Or even willingly going out.

The Manhattan morning was too dry to foster snow, but the cold air made itself known in other ways. Frost covered every plant, sealing windows shut and congealing the soil solid.

Sharp wind beat against every solid object on the island, anything that wasn’t bolted to the pavement began to slide with the gale. It took detritus into the air and threw it upwards. Rubbish swooped aloft, rising far above the city skyline before falling back down onto apartment rooftops and into the filigree of streetlights.

It was raining frozen trash.

And still people were going to work. As Foggy purveyed the commotion, one woman completely abandoned her blocked car in order to jog to her destination.

Her car was definitely going to be towed, Foggy would probably be watching that later.

Technically, he should be out there in the chaos, going to work with the rest of the city. But he couldn’t bring himself to do that. He couldn’t muster up the willpower required to wake up, wash off, get dressed, and get to work. He knew he was losing clients by sitting at home alone during a workday, he should already be at his desk, tidying up the neglected law firm and attempting to salvage his dying business. But he couldn’t bear the thought of clearing out the office and working alone. He’d been avoiding the inevitable for weeks now, he wasn’t going to submit to it today.

And the wind was awful, he told himself. He could be just as morose at home with none of the hassle of venturing outdoors.

He took the final bite of his toast and shuffled up to his thermostat. He had it up to seventy and he was still fucking cold. If he was made of money, he would have turned it up more. Instead, he left it at seventy, if he wasn’t going to work, his expenses were about to get a lot harder to come by.

Attempting to warm himself up mechanically, Foggy rubbed his hands aggressively against the knees of his pajama bottoms and then against his cheeks. Eyeing the blanket on his sofa, Foggy stepped into the part of his apartment he deferred to as his living room. Really, it was the same room he’d just been standing in, but such was the nature of a New York apartment.

In an attempt to distract himself from his unpleasant reality he turned on the TV. He was lonely, and television was pretty similar to having company.

Local News was the very last thing he wanted to watch, but he suffered through it anyway. Only because he didn’t feel like expending the energy to find a different channel.

But then it happened, the subject shifted to recent events regarding Daredevil he switched the channel. He couldn’t bear to think about that subject himself, much less hear some talking head’s opinion on the matter.

He’d flipped the station to a call sale network, he listened to the woman on the screen as she tried to proclaim the cultural and artistic value of the ‘ceramic teenage mutant ninja turtles’ the channel was selling for the low price of four hundred dollars. Unable to take the soul-crushing irrelevance of it all any longer, Foggy switched the channel back to the news. 

He had to watch the news unfold, even if he didn’t want to. He owed it to Matt.

If something new happened, Foggy had to know about it.

An airborne Chinese takeout box interrupted his thoughts, it hit his window with surprising force. The metal handle had made contact with the glass, producing a ‘clack’ loud enough to make Foggy jump. He swore in the privacy of his own apartment, first at the sound and then at his predicament.

He missed Matt.

He missed Karen too.

He even missed the innate sense of purpose he had when he woke up, took a shower, and went to work. Last year he didn’t believe that sensation was a real thing.

Somehow, he didn’t notice when the subject of the news changed to the exact thing he had been eagerly dreading. He moved his head up from it’s position between his hands and caught a headline out of the corner of his eye.

The Devil’s Greatest Trick’ it read, then the screen flashed, switching to a less palatable caption. “Daredevil still MIA after violent weekend in Hell’s Kitchen” The screen changed to vertical cellphone footage, shot from ground level as something massive slunk around on the rooftops above. The thing trudged into a pace, picking up speed until it was quadrupedally cantering from side to side of the roof’s edge. It stopped suddenly, privy to something hidden from the cameraman‘s point of view. 

The Beast then reared up on two legs, hissing as it did so. Two heavy, curved horns flashed in the moonlight, then the same light reflected off the thing’s hooves as it leapt off-screen.

Just the televised image of it had sent Foggy’s heart racing, the uncomfortably familiar shape of its face paired with the unnatural, contorted body of the demon. But it wasn’t new news, the reporter was just reciting recent events. The footage was two weeks old.

Two weeks ago, The Raft had been broken into, and one inmate had been freed. (He wasn’t freed, he’d been killed, Foggy mentally corrected the newscaster.)

This coincided with a one hour blackout, a brief invasion of Hand ninjas, and the appearance of the twelve foot demon that the general public had recognized as Daredevil.

Then there had been a fight uptown, and Daredevil had disappeared afterwards.

It nearly sent Foggy into a rage. This wasn’t news, it was in the goddamned etymology of the word, news had to be new.

The best this channel provided was a few unfounded reports from people who claimed to have seen the devil rooting through their garden.

Which added up to a total of thirteen unfounded sightings of The Beast, and none of Matt. Foggy just felt exhausted, he wanted, so very badly, to convince himself that Matt had been successfully exorcised, but that didn’t seem very possible anymore.

People weren’t reporting encounters with Daredevil, the masked human figure, instead they spread news about the massive horned demon that had made itself at home by mangling Matt’s body from within.

As the subject of the news changed, The Beast’s silhouette was still pacing through Foggy’s mind.

 

 

——

 

 

Looking back, it had all started in the middle of a mundane day. Matt had completely stopped typing. The silence was subtle, but still noticeable. Foggy looked from his own paperwork to see what had interrupted Matt’s workflow. From a glance, Foggy figured Matt was thinking about something.

“Are you okay?”

“M’fine, I had weird night last night. It’s hard to tell if I’m thinking clearly.” Master communicator that he was, Matt attempted to leave the subject at that.

“What kind of weird? I mean, personally, I think all of your nights qualify for weird.” Foggy pushed.

“I found a big hole- I’m pretty sure it appeared overnight.”

Foggy nearly laughed. “A big hole?”

“On patrol, I discovered a hole beside a parking garage, I went down and- and I don’t know. I don’t remember anything after that.”

Without voicing his thoughts, Foggy wondered if Matt had dozed off on a rooftop somewhere, only to finally begin to lose his sanity to sleep deprivation.

“I’m just-“ He muttered something inaudible. “-today. I’ll feel better once I figure out what happened last night.”

Foggy nodded because he didn’t think a stupid hole was worth a fight. He doubted it was even worth the time spent on this conversation. The sound of keyboard-clacking returned, and Foggy fell back into his routine.

He had forgotten about it by the time he awoke the next day.

Matt brought it up again over lunch, because now he knew what the hole was, it was the entrance to a Hand Temple.

He didn’t bother to explain what that was to Foggy, but Foggy got the picture anyway.

“Alright then. I have a feeling you’re not done with this.”

“Foggy- this doesn’t need to be a bad thing. This temple, it means The Hand is looking for a new leader. Foggy I could-“

“Stop it.” This was it, this might just be the worst idea Matt had ever brought to Foggy’s attention, the man had outdone himself. “Fuck’s sake Matt, no. Don’t do that, I can’t believe I have to tell you it’s a bad idea.” Foggy wrapped up his lunch then and there, he was no longer hungry.

”What would you even do with a ninja cult? What benefit would you even get?”

“Foggy, you don’t understand, I can help people with this- I know this will work, it’s like, it’s like there’s something inside me, and it’s telling me this will work.”

Nothing Foggy could have said would have kept Matt from venturing further into his own grave, but looking back on it, Foggy should have got mad, he should have been preemptively fucking furious at Matt for not listening to his warning.

That night, only a little bit after Foggy had gotten back home from the firm: he turned around to find a horned silhouette sloped atop his balcony. Matt was just sitting there, in the rain.

“You asshole- now you’re trying to give me a heart attack!”

Matt bobbed his head once in a half-shrug, patiently waiting for the door to be opened.

Of course Foggy ended up letting him in, if only for the catharsis of making Matt sop up the water trail he made while entering the apartment. 

“Foggy, I did it. As of tonight, I am operating The Hand.” 

”Why? Matt-?” 

“You need to— Look here, I can use this to change things for the better, I can clean up the city, I could even dismantle The Hand.” Matt sounded eager, frighteningly so. “Foggy, I have an army at my disposal.”

Foggy placed his head in his hands before he responded. “You know what, fine.” Matt took a step back, already reaching for the door’s handle. “Glad you- updated me.” A bad feeling had crept into Foggy’s gut, he already knew this was going to go poorly, and he felt hopeless. 

Matt turned his back and slid the door open. Foggy should have screamed about it, yelled until his lungs hurt and then shut Matt inside like an unruly cat. Even if it probably wouldn’t have worked, at the very least Foggy would be able to say he really tried.

Instead he had let Matt off with a goodbye.

The next morning, Matt was absent again. Foggy had expected it, but he was still fretting.

Considering the events of the past two workdays, his mind was beginning to clutter. He was getting scared for Matt’s well-being. Images of Matt, outmuscled and outnumbered by a hoard of Hand ninjas. Alternatively, he imagined that Matt had become some kind of mad tyrant overnight.

When Karen asked where Matt was, Foggy told her the truth. All it accomplished was making her furious with both him and Matt. It seemed like Karen took out all her rage on the messenger, she blamed him for things he would later come to blame himself for. 

She left work early, and he decided to follow suit

When he got home He called Matt again.

Voicemail.

This time Foggy’s concern manifested as poorly concealed rage.

“Matt if you went and got yourself killed I swear to god I’m not going to pay for your funeral, I swear to God.”

The rage morphed into misery as he heard his own words. When he was done speaking he threw his phone at the sofa where it landed with a soft thud. Foggy then plopped himself onto the sofa with a much harder thud. If he’d been less anxious, he probably would have fallen asleep slack on his couch. Rather, he tossed and turned until he finally attempted to sleep in his bed.

Impressively, considering his location, Foggy’s apartment did have the luxury of a hallway. It led out of his ‘leisure-kitchen’ and branched out to a bathroom and a spare closet, before finally leading into his bedroom.

Foggy stopped in the bathroom to brush his teeth and slip into his pajamas: an undershirt and a pair of sweatpants. From there he crawled onto his mattress, setting his cellphone at his bedside, just in case. He teetered in and out of a restless, senseless slumber, occasionally jolting himself awake from dreams that he couldn’t quite recall.

It seemed like another dream when Foggy noticed the dark shape standing by the foot of his bed, in the stupor of sleep, he barely registered this as a threat. Then the figure grabbed him by the legs and violently hoisted him up. Foggy struggled against his blankets as two more men grabbed him by the shoulders. He screamed.

As the group lifted Foggy through his hallway, he managed to identify their clothes. Hand ninjas, dressed from head to toe in loose red fabric, draped over intricate black armor. Their eyes were a pale, uniform white, no pupil, no iris. They didn’t really look human. Foggy kept screaming, elbowing and kicking his abductors to no avail.

What the hell had Matt done? What had been done to Matt? Foggy didn’t understand what was happening, but the vague idea he’d conjured up was absolutely horrific.

The sliding glass door to his balcony was already open. A fourth Hand ninja stood on the railing, overseeing the whole operation. As Foggy was hauled outside he was struck by another wave of dread. The city was silent and dark.

For as far as Foggy could see, New York was unlit.

When the ninjas reached the ground, they let Foggy down, leaving him in a sitting position on the cold cement.

The streets were near empty.

In the absence of light pollution, the stars gleamed like neon signs. The night sky was scintillated. Foggy realized he hated the sight of it, the stars were cold, indifferent, and alien; in this context, they felt like an audience of some sort, waiting eagerly to watch something horrible happen.

Foggy shivered in the cold and the closest ninja grabbed him by the shoulder, seemingly angered by the movement. Apparently The Hand didn’t teach their warriors to understand the human body’s reaction to cold air.

Fear kept Foggy from trying to run. He knew he’d be cut down before he could even turn around. Trying to reason his cowardice, he figured he was being led to the same fate as Matt, and he’d rather die knowing what had happened to his best mate.

After a long, dreadful walk, he was brought to the open gate of a chain link fence. It led into a construction site, something that looked like an unfinished condominium, completed abandoned by the people who had been working on it. While walking beneath an unmanned crane, Foggy wondered where the workmen has all gone.

“Everyone’s gone, the whole city. How?” It was his first time actually speaking to the ninjas who had kidnapped him, and even then, he wasn’t directly asking them a question so much as mumbling to himself in hushed shock. Either way, he got a response.

“The blackout. It’s all part of The Beast’s plan.” His voice was raspy, dry and unused, but still understandable.

Foggy didn’t acknowledge the reply, instead he held his breath as he saw the hole.

It was huge, about twenty feet wide, deep enough to be pitch black, and almost fake looking; like a grainy image of a sinkhole superimposed over the ground.

“We will take you to The Beast.”

Before Foggy could figure out what that sentence meant, he’d been knocked off his feet. Then he was falling, which didn’t really make sense because he hadn’t been standing particularly close to the hole.

Foggy couldn’t remember the majority of his time passing through the cavern. At one point he realized he was standing on a staircase in pitch darkness, then he took a step upwards, and then he fell. It was an altogether disorienting experience, Foggy didn’t quite know what to make of it when he began to feel the floor against his back.

He didn’t land on the ground, there hadn’t been an impact, it was more like the floor beneath him had faded into existence while he was experiencing vertigo.

At first he wasn’t even certain whether or not he was laying on the ground the ground or levitating against a wall. Then a drop of water landed on his face.

Two hands grabbed him by the back of his t-shirt and began to drag him against the wet rock. Slowly, Foggy was dragged into the torchlight, whereupon he could begin to make sense of his surroundings.

Unsurprisingly, the man dragging him was a Hand ninja, this one wore a unique trident-shaped mask, setting him apart from Foggy’s quartet of home invaders.

The space around him, however, was stunning. A great hall, somewhere between a natural rock formation and a man made passage, the uneven, unshapely walls were carved in exquisite detail. Chiseled landscapes of Japanese villages. A garden, placid and beautiful save for the hideous winged monster drinking from a stream. Villages on fire. Classical images of Baphomet. Churches, temples and mega- cities being razed to the ground by seemingly endless hoards of ninjas.

The further they went, the grislier the images became. Shameless goatmen dancing around a crying man. Long dead political figures sprouting horns and tusks that pierced their own skulls like babirusa.

Gargoyles lined the roof, sometimes it looked like they were crawling on their own.

Foggy had nearly forgotten the images weren’t real by the time he was heaved out of the tunnel. Now he was in a throne room. It seemed more artificial than the carved hall, a perfectly rectangular room with a massive throne on the far end of it. Initially, Foggy assumed the inhumanly large, horned man sitting atop the throne was another sculpture. And then it stood up, trotting over to Foggy on slightly shaky legs.

As the giant got close, Foggy recognized Matt’s face. He had to be ten feet tall.

He was wearing black, with two interlocking red Ds embroidered onto the front of his longshirt. His gloves were adorned with two twin blades, covering the length of his wrist, down to the tip of his pinky finger.

Foggy began to wonder if he had been drugged. He’d never actually taken magic mushrooms before, but this definitely seemed like the kind of thing he’d see if he did.

Then the sound of Matt’s voice brought Foggy crashing down into reality. “He’s bleeding.”

It was a growl, but still somehow Matt’s voice. “I told you not to harm him, I was beyond clear.”

“I was not the one who handled him initially, my lord. I did nothing to harm the man.”

Matt growled. It wasn’t anything like a voice this time.

The ninja delivered a respectful bow before leaving, unfazed by the horrifying sound that had just been targeted at him.

Foggy hadn’t even realized his knee was bleeding until Matt had mentioned it.

Matt crouched down, leaning over him. “Foggy, are you alright? I wasn’t expecting them to be so,” he paused for a brief moment, apparently searching for a passable word. “-rough with you.”

“Matt you’d better have an incredible, Cuma Sum Laude, fantastic explanation for this.”

It was then Foggy realized that Matt’s ears had tapered out from his head, flattening out and developing new musculature. He noticed this because Matt’s ears had just twitched backwards, laying flat against his head like a scared cat’s. He didn’t say anything, but he did open his mouth a few times while his eyes darted wildly around the room. 

“Matt, I am going to need an explanation, I need something.”

“I don’t- I don’t know what’s going on.”

Foggy too tired to be mad and too mad to be tired, so he mostly just slipped into a state of preoccupied confusion. Matt had little horns.

No mask, just horns.

Unthinking and unafraid, Foggy reached up and grabbed the one to his right. It was a stubby little thing with the texture of a fingernail, just beneath his hairline, it wouldn’t have been even the slightest bit impressive had it not been attached to an oversized human head. Matt pulled back as Foggy tugged on his face.

“I’m sorry, Foggy, everything is going wrong, Bullseye is out, he escaped The Raft during the blackout— and there’s a blackout across the entire island. I just wanted to have you somewhere I could keep you safe- I just.-“

Matt availed the opportunity to bring him forward into a hug. 

“Please, please, stop talking.” Foggy took measured, long breaths until his brain had finished processing everything that was happening around him. Sitting next to Matt didn’t help, it just made him feel like he was back in elementary school. “So it’s going- fine? I mean, it certainly seems like you’re leading The Hand right now.”

Matt nodded.

“Do you know I’ve been calling you?”

“I didn’t. My phone got lost. I would have-“

“No you wouldn’t have.”

A sudden clatter at the entryway drew Matt’s attention away from Foggy. A ninja stood at the edge of the hallway, framed by the dancing light of the fire.

”My lord, we’re close to apprehending Bullseye, but I believe, that your assistance may aide our search.”

”Understood” Matt rose up and drew a hand to his hairline, touching the base of his new horns. “I’ll be with you shortly.”

Matt chuffed as the ninja turned out of sight, watching the figure for some time after Foggy couldn’t.

Matt would leave the cavern about once a hour, each time he’d come back looking just a little more beastial. His feet had elongated in the center, all but two toes had fully receded back into the foot, leaving nothing but oddly shaped toenails prodding out from the sole. Matt’s horns had grown to at least a foot in length, and now both of them were developing hard, keratinous ridges. His ears had grown narrow while his torso had grown long. 

It was terrifying, trapped in a dark cave with a ten foot creature that could smell fear and hear the blood flowing through his veins. It should have been comforting to remember that this was still Matt, but Foggy was starting to question that detail.

He had doubted the verity of his understanding of Matt before, but this was different, Matt was twitching, stumbling, and muttering to himself.  When Foggy worked up the courage to mention this to Matt, Matt agreed with him.

”there’s something wrong, I think, I think there’s something else thinking for me- I’m having thoughts that aren’t my own, I’m blacking out and-“

”My lord,” interrupted a lone ninja “Bullseye has been captured.”

Matt steeled. He exited the room without saying a word. Foggy followed after him. Up ahead, Matt fell forwards and then continued to move. The transition gave Foggy time to catch up to the large shape, where he realized something disconcerting. Matt hadn’t fallen, but instead he’d pitched forward and landed on all four limbs. He walked through the tunnel on knuckle and cloven hoof. Something in his shoulders had switched folding his collarbone up politely within his chest. The transformation had seemed almost natural, as Matt walked on his fours the only thing that indicated this wasn’t his default state were the tears in his clothing.

He stopped, and turned his head back to face Foggy. As he did such, a tail split out from his back, fabric tore, but the movement was still smooth, as if this was just something Matt’s spine was supposed to do.

He twitched with his whole body, seizing and shivering as he turned on Foggy.

”I’m going to-“ The tone of his voice changed, taking on a strange, inhuman quality, like an animal mimicking human words. “I’ll kill you, gut you like a pig. I’ll eat you and let him smell what’s inside of us.” Foggy fell backwards, trapped beneath Matt’s head and two lengthy fangs folded out from the inside of his mouth. Both were longer than Foggy’s fingers, pushed outward by some muscle in Matt’s face.

Then Matt crumpled to the ground atop of Foggy, he was sobbing and clawing futilely at the solid rock beneath them. Once he came to his senses, he bolted backwards, huddling up in a shivering mass and muttering to himself. He may have been praying. Either way, it was manic.

”Foggy that wasn’t me, I didn’t do that. There’s a demon inside of me.”

It would have been crazy, had Matt not looked like that, had they not been on the floor of a cave seemingly decorated in demonolatry. But Foggy didn’t say anything in response, he tried to be as quiet as possible, some stupid part of his brain was telling him he could go quiet and Matt would lose track of where he was. 

“I’m not leading The Hand, it is, it just needed a new host. I’m going to keep it from hurting you, but I need you to go- you have to leave- I’m not me anymore.” 

“I believe you.” Foggy forced out.

Two ninja had walked to Matt’s side, where they patiently waited for him to stand. When he did rise, he was still shivering, his long, pointed ears swiveled constantly like a frightened bat’s. His breath was shaky, but slowing. A calm passed over him as one ninja grabbed a hold of his left horn, dragging his hand over the keratin and bone.

Matt turned back once, before whispering. “Foggy, you’re gonna hear a scream, when that happens, you run. Don’t follow me, Don’t-“ He went stiff, cutting himself off.

Foggy sat on the cave floor for what felt like a long time. He realized, dully, that Matt had grown fur. He hadn’t noticed that in the moment. He listened to the sound of water dripping off stalactites and gargoyles. His pants were wet but he was relatively certain he hadn’t pissed them. It was warm and humid in this cave, more like a swamp than a part of NYC.

He wondered if this was hell.

Then came the yell, a brutal, two part scream that barely even sounded human. It started, pitched, and then ended. Initially, abject terror held Foggy in place. 

There was something inside of Matt, something that he was calling a demon, something that most certainly looked like a demon, and it was wrestling control away from Matt. This was a nightmare, he wanted this to be a nightmare.

He couldn’t move, there wasn’t any point, he had two options, he could run backwards into a dead end or forwards straight into The Beast’s claws.

A shape sidled out from the darkness ahead, moving on four legs and shaking like a leaf. Even standing on its fours, the creature’s head was level with Foggy’s.

More details were revealed as he stepped out into the light.

Blood coated the front of his face, it shlicked down both his horns and dripped from long, hooked fangs that folded backwards into his mouth. Foggy was sure he was about to die.

But Matt was trembling, it got so bad he had to lay on his right flank, setting his bloodied chin on the cold, wet floor. He was shaking so furiously that Foggy wondered if he was having a seizure.

“Tol’d you to go, said-“ His tail whipped furiously behind him, striking both the cave wall and his own legs.

Foggy steeled himself, but ended up hyperventilating, he passed Matt with his eyes shut, lest he stop to stare or assist his dying friend.

”I ToLD yoU to GO.”

A low pitched whistle connected his syllables, rising in volume until it reached a point somewhere between a trumpet and Godzilla’s roar.

Adrenaline had been galvanizing Foggy’s bloodstream since he’d first been awoken by Hand ninja, but that unholy bugle had been the thing to finally set him into motion. He bolted left in a panic, then darted right.

The passage was very different this time. It was long and winding, filled with sharp turns and unlit stairways. It was like the cave itself was trying to keep Foggy from escaping The Beast’s grasp. It was following him, he knew it, he knew The Beast was weaving through the shadows, waiting for Foggy to tire himself out. The tunnel made sure to tell him this, shaping its walls into twisted murals of The Beast devouring him alive.

The cave then widened out into what looked like a godforsaken temple. The walls were carved into a tapestry depicting Hand armies razing villages, shrines, and mega-cities. Four stone columns grew organically from the floor, all of them grafted into the shape of whatever thing Matt had become. In the center of the room there was an altar, atop it was the body of a man who had been gored by a horned beast.

Foggy didn’t even register that it was Bullseye’s corpse, despite the striped blue spandex. No, he just saw something horrific and he ran away from it based solely off instinct.

 

He wanted to blame Matt for this, point the finger at the stupid asshole who was so close to getting them both killed, this was entirely Matt’s own fault, but Foggy couldn’t make himself mad. When he remembered the way Matt quivered on the cave floor he mostly just felt pity, pity and dread.

His legs were sore by the time he’d escaped the underground horrorshow. He’d run up three spiraling corridors before he reached the construction site he’d been led into the previous night. It was sunset, he’d been down there for a day and a half.

When he finally got out he didn’t stop running, his legs were burning and his breath was giving out, but he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. 

There were people on the streets, they were looking at him like he was crazy, moving out of his way and diverting their gazes. The lights were on. Traffic was moving.

Foggy turned around and saw nothing but more people. He was wet, and he was cold. 

He headed for home, still running. 

He kept running.

He probably would have collapsed on the cement had he not heard a footfall behind him. Shocked anew, he dragged himself further. He never reached his apartment, instead he began to lose his breath, thoroughly outpaced by his own shadow. He looked at the sidewalk beneath him while he gathered his energy, when he looked up he was staring at The Beast. Ten feet tall, twelve, counting the horns, all but the head and hands were completely covered in reddish fur. Matt’s black suit hung on it in tatters.

It looked, yes, looked, at Foggy. With a moment’s hesitation, it hoisted him up by one leg. Hordes of Hand ninja stared down at the scene from the rooftops.

The Beast dangled Foggy at eye level, probably completely aware of how painful it’s grasp was. “You are going to help me digest my host.” It slipped its claws through Foggy’s sweats, allowing the sharp hooks to tear the fabric. “This marks the start of a second age. One Leader, one reign.”

The Hand assembly slammed their weaponry against the rooftops, punctuating The Beast’s words.

Foggy shut his eyes, fully expecting the worst.

With his eyes sealed, he missed what happened next. Something hit The Beast in center mass, knocking the thing hard into the asphalt. Subsequently, Foggy also hit the ground.

Next thing he knew he was being helped up from the gutter by a woman he recognized. He didn’t necessarily know Jessica Jones, but he remembered her face. He would have thought about her presence a little harder if his attention wasn’t split at the moment. Behind her, The Beast fought with four, maybe five assailants.

The Hand ninjas who’d been watching from above began to join the fray, leaping down from rooftops and fire escapes and overwhelming the scene in a great wave of red. 

Foggy attempted to run before receiving an assist from Jessica, who lifted him up into the air. He had never experienced unaided flight before and nearly vomited at the sensation. Luckily, he kept himself from messing his pajamas, if not due to his nerve, due to the fact that his stomach was empty. As they rose upwards he heard a voice,

“Danny there’s no time, do it now!”

followed by a blast of cold, golden energy. It cracked pavement and shattered glass, leaving nothing but silence and a blazing white afterimage that encompassed the whole of Foggy’s vision. The mirage faded slowly, when he could see once more he was sitting in an alleyway across from Jessica.

She was rubbing her eyes, apparently just as addled as he was.

“What did you just do?” He asked before he fully caught his breath.

“If we’re lucky, we just punched a demon out of a lawyer. Not really us, Danny did the punching.” She had shut her eyes after speaking, either a facial tic Foggy didn’t recognize or an effect of the bright light.

“So what’s happened to Matt then? Is he going to be-“

“I don’t even know if it’s worked yet. But, hopefully yes. If everything went according to plan he’s already back to normal, The Beast’ll be gone and so will the horns. And then we’ll never do this again” Foggy nodded and Jessica didn’t notice the gesture.

They never got to figure out if it had worked, instead Matt had just disappeared in the middle of the fight. When the hand hoard had been beaten back he was gone. No body, no sign of The Beast, and no sign of Matt

Even with that, when Foggy pulled himself to work the next morning he faintly hoped he would find Matt sitting at his desk. Foggy wanted to yell at him until his lungs hurt, and just as much, he wanted to see Matt again. He didn’t expect it, but he wanted it. He reasoned it wasn’t optimism if he didn’t believe in it.

Instead Karen was gone as well, he was alone in his office. It figured that she was gone, after what he’d said to her, and after what she’d probably seen on the news.

He called her. It went to voicemail. He hated his phone, he wanted to shatter it against his desk. He retraced the argument they’d had the other day, and thought about where she might have gone.

Then he went home.

 

——

 

Things had stayed that way for two weeks now, in one fell swoop, Foggy had lost everything. Everyone he knew. His income. Even his sense of the familiar.

He kept watching the news. It was addictive, to some degree, none of these things affected him and he had no effect on them, but he had to know. He needed to hear about Matt, he had to know what had happened.

Some chick was working with The Punisher.

Some broadway musical was being plagued by weird accidents.

An old dead mobster was about to get a statue.

He was half asleep but the time he heard it-

“An armed robbery at a gas station in Brooklyn was stopped by a horned vigilante. Albeit one you might not recognize.”

The screen changed and Foggy saw something from the nightmare that had woken him up that morning. It was The Beast, crawling over linoleum tile as it closed in on an armed gunman. The thief shot at the monster to no avail. The Beast then stood up and knocked the man onto the ground, it kicked the man underhoof, driving two pointed stops into the man’s chest. It stopped as a woman got up from behind the counter. There was a moment’s pause and then the thing bolted out of view, apparently done with it’s victim.

It didn’t even have a mask. That was just Matt’s face, exposed for the world to see through grainy cctv footage.

Foggy didn’t hear whatever the newscaster said next, the woman from the video was being interviewed and she was swearing up and down she’d been saved by Daredevil. Worse, she really believed the thing that had intervened was the genuine article, she was concerned about The Beast, fretting about how the unpleasant weather must be affecting him.

It felt like a kick in the teeth, the initial impact had passed but Foggy was still in pain. Matt was gone, fully ‘digested’, and now the thing that killed him was parading around in his skin. It didn’t matter how much The Beast warped Matt’s body, that was still his face and it didn’t have the right to wear it around.

And then he considered another possibility. What if Matt was still trapped in there, watching as the demon he’d wrought ruined him?

Both options were horrific. 

And now the newscaster was talking about copyright law.

He wanted to vomit. Instead he stood up from his seat and took a shower. He didn’t know why, but he couldn’t sit down any longer. He couldn’t do anything, but it felt wrong doing nothing.


	2. Two Black Toes

Matt felt as if he’d been struck with lightning, a sensation like cold fusion galvanized his veins and shook him from whatever numbness he’d been resting in. Immediately, he felt fear, no context, very little understanding, just the overwhelming sense that he was in great danger.

His surroundings supported that deduction, he had come to in a war zone, the sound of swords slicing through air surrounded him, as did the distinct, heartbeat-less shapes of Hand Ninjas. A man was grappling with Matt’s leg, managing to drag him backwards despite being only half his size. On some level, Matt recognized the man grappling with his hindquarters as Luke Cage, but this revelation did nothing to make his situation more comprehensible.

Involuntarily, Matt’s tail curled upwards from behind him. It was wrong, it felt wrong, that limb should not have been there. The unpleasant sensation spurred Matt into a run, whereupon he knocked himself free of his human hanger-on.

As he moved, the past week returned to him in vivid detail, but it didn’t stop him from running. If anything, knowing what he had done only drove his hooves harder against the pavement. Hooves. Oh god he had hooves,

The soft scent of sulfur clouded his perception of the world around him, it took a moment’s worth of confusion for him to understand the odor was emanating off of his own body. Behind him he could still hear the sounds of combat, voices he recognized, people he knew.

He kept running.

Horrified by his imbroglio, Matteventually took shelter in a drainage pipe and began to will his breathing steady. Long breath in, long breath out, repeated until he could think straight. He huddled down deeper into the plastic tube, stopping only when he felt the sensation of cruddy water steeping into the fur on his legs.

He remembered every moment The Beast had been in control of him, and he remembered what he was about to do before he’d been knocked to consciousness. He pressed his fangs into the roof of his mouth, hard, it was an improvised way of suppressing a scream.

Matt wasn’t sure what to make of himself. He wasn’t sure if he even was himself.

As good of an idea as ‘curl up in some shitwater and die’ sounded like, he couldn’t be sure The Beast wouldn’t return the moment he lost focus. He didn’t know if The Beast was still inside of him. It probably wasn’t, considering that Matt couldn’t feel its oppressive presence any longer. But he’d only really felt that sensation in the past few hours while The Beast had been operating within him for days. 

An entire night passed inside the drainage pipe.

He was asleep when he was startled awake by the sound of his name. About seven blocks north, he could hear people searching for him, speaking amongst themselves and loudly calling out his name, and moniker, together. The voices were all familiar, Cage, Parker- and Foggy too.

What would they even do if they found him? They seemed to understand he was currently in control of himself, and they certainly weren’t trying to be discrete about this.

Again, the movement of his tail surprised him, but this time he gave it an experimental wave before he wrapped it around his body.

With his thumb and index finger, he worked to rub Bullseye’s dried blood off of his face. It was disgusting, his whole situation was, but at least the gorey grit could be cleaned off.

He remembered his horns, and debated cleaning those off too. He didn’t want to touch the two growths, but the meaty smell of the man he had just murdered made him feel ill.

He pressed his hands on the hefty, complicated structures, they began from his forehead, pushing upwards before sweeping back, and then coming back up to form twin points. He cleaned them off using the grey water in the dank tunnel, disguising one awful smell with another.

The voices continued

He stayed put, shivering in the cold, rancid water and prayed. He begged God for a way to fix what he’d done to himself.

Nothing came to him, and he resolved to shivering in silence until he finally fell back to sleep.

 

——

 

The Beast never returned, and Matt found some relief in that. On his own, he didn’t present an active threat to the public. Unfortunately, none of The Beast’s marks subsided.

It seemed the alterations to his body were permanent, the horns were firmly rooted in his skull, the tail was an extension of his spine, and there was nothing to possibly be done about his massive size; at that point, defanging himself would be a lost cause.

Initially, he attempted to drown himself in self-pity. He crept into the backroom of an abandoned strip mall, finding the place only a few meters away from the sewage pipe

The air smelled like mold, and the concrete beneath his feet was slightly moist.If starvation wouldn’t kill him, toxins or hypothermia would. So Matt curled up where he was certain no passerby could see him and waited to wither away, not eating, not moving. Rats crawled out of the walls to chew on his tail, he didn’t bother to move the limb.

Time passed, Matt shifted between unconsciousness and wakefulness.

He was vaguely aware of other presences outside his hiding spot, cars parking and people talking about inconsequential things.

Sitting in place, Matt could feel his own shape in uncomfortable detail, radio waves bounced off the concrete around him and gave him a detailed image of the furred mountain on the backroom floor. The fur on his back bristled against the remnants of his costume. Suddenly motivated, he rolled on his back and buried his head in his chest, the motion made him painfully aware his neck had more vertebrae than that of any regular human neck. Each movement showed him something newly inhuman about his body. He rolled back to the broken back-window he’d entered through and took a desperate breath of semi-clean air. He couldn’t take being in close quarters with himself any longer.

There was a fight a few blocks away, two men punching at, and frequently missing a single, smaller, man.

He couldn’t do anything about it, he couldn’t intervene without revealing himself.

It was about three rooftops away, in the alley behind a small bar. It was close, only seconds away.

The smaller man had just been knocked to the ground, where one of his two attackers attempted to kick him before missing. The other man stomped the fallen man on the hip bone.

Nobody seemed to know it was happening.

Matt berated himself as he scaled the first building between himself and the fight.From the top of the complex, he reared up bipedally and took a quick moment to catch his bearings. His sense of balance, superhuman as it was, could barely keep him from falling forwards under the weight of his horns.

Time was passing in slow motion, someone had to be looking at him right now, from a higher vantage point, he would have been completely exposed, a massive, semi humanoid shape running over the rooftops.

He was upon the the fight in a matter of seconds, leaping down beside the curbstomping.

The attackers both smelled like alcohol, and so did the man on the cement.

Without thinking, he growled. The sound reverberated through the alleyway, loud enough to make Matt seal his ears shut with shock; it wasn’t the kind of noise a person made. In the neighboring buildings, people stopped what they were doing and payed heed to the snarl, stepping back, sitting down, dropping things onto hardwood.

Both men fled immediately, they didn’t even try to fend off the demonic shape that had descended on them. Matt figured that was what he’d been expecting, but really, he had expected worse from them: praying and sobbing, subconsciously, Matt had dreaded killing the men on accident.

The man on the pavement didn’t move. He was shivering— he was praying.

Matt stepped back, he considered rearing up in order to appear more human, but decided against making himself look any larger than he already did. The victim was injured, his pelvis was cracked and his head had hit the pavement. “I won’t hurt you, I don’t want to.” His voice was still a growl, and Matt wondered if his vocal chords had permanently shifted.

The man ran his hands over his head and went silent. Matt took the opportunity to step closer, his face was uncovered, and he mentally debated whether the other man could tell he was blind from this distance. The old scar was probably as visible as it had been in decades, exposed to the elements and clouded with mucus.

But the man didn’t comment on Matt’s battered facial features, instead he hoisted himself up into a sitting position. Upon hearing the man get up, Matt began to back away, his growl had alerted the bar staff to something happening in the back.

They’d get the man to a hospital, Matt was only making his condition worse by sticking around.

He ran before anyone else could see him.

Everywhere he turned he was at risk of being seen or filmed. Every few meters he’d punch a hoof through a frozen-over puddle, the ice would break and his two toes would be submerged in frigid water.

He hid up on the rooftops and paced, he was going to catch his death out in this cold, he could feel snow forming in the clouds above, and he knew the weather could only get worse from here. 

The building across from his perch began to chime, church bells, he was standing in the front of a church. People dispersed from the building, and Matt recoiled away from the roof’s edge but kept his attention fixed to the people below.

He hadn’t attempted to enter a church since The Beast had entered his person, not that he was opposed to bursting into flames at this point, but because he couldn’t bear to have the confirmation that he had fully became some wicked thing, cast out from churches and holy places. At this point, he wasn’t sure it mattered. He aligned his haunches with the shingled roof of the steeple and lunged forward. He bounded clean over two lane traffic, and then landed with the grace of a wrecking ball. From the tower-top he entered the building through the belfry.

The wind blew hard at his fur, but he didn’t catch fire.

He slipped downwards, descending until he reached a stairway leading into the west wing of the building. His claws clicked against the linoleum staircase as he slowly lowered himself to ground level.

Immediately, he felt like he was making a mistake. The priest was standing only a wall away from Matt, and his steady heartbeat was boring into Matt’s brain. Instead of allowing himself to be seen, Matt waiting until the clergyman stepped into the backroom and only then did he begin to sidle out into the main hall of the church.

His twisted form trembled as he passed over pews, not due to any holy interference, but rather due to the low temperature within the building.

He coiled up on the tiled floor, only inches before the first step of the altar.

“Please, I need a way to fix this. I can’t live this way, I don’t want to live like this.” Matt’s voice didn’t leave his mouth as a growl this time, rather, he sounded like a sickly, tired man. “I need a way to be myself again.”

In the absence of any immediate smiting, Matt continued his plea. He prayed until he began to meditate, and then meditated until he fell asleep.

He awoke to a cold sensation on his forehead. A priest, a different one than the first, had found him asleep at the foot of the altar.

Matt scrambled away from the hand on his forehead. He made an odd noise of the throat as he backed himself against the nearest pew.

“I won’t hurt you son, I know who you are.” The priest reassured, extending his hand closer to Matt.

“You know who I am?” Matt whispered, dreading any possible meaning behind the priest’s assertion.

“I know you’re Daredevil, at the very least. I don’t know your name.”

“So people know what I look like now? Or was this a surprise to you.” A heavy weight began to exert itself on Matt’s chest, and he could feel his heart working overtime.

The priest sighed, taking note of the tension in Matt’s voice. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but this-“ He gestured at Matt. “Anyone who follows the news knows about this.”

“I imagine they do.” Matt said as he slumped to the ground.

“It’s okay son, I know you mean no harm, you wouldn’t have been allowed in otherwise.”

Matt tugged on his horns, taking an awkward seat on the pew beside him.

“I’m not-“ Matt stopped himself, as he wasn’t sure if he could truthfully say ‘I’m not a demon’. “I don’t know what I am, but I used to be a human being.” He tucked his legs up beneath him, still finding the lanky limbs unwieldy and unpredictable. “I was hoping I’d find a way to fix that if I- I don’t know- repented- apologized.”

“It’s okay, you-“

“I don’t think you understand, I did this to myself.” Matt whispered. “I let something in, and this is what it did to me.”

The priest took a seat besides Matthew, and took a moment before he spoke. “And yet, you’re here.”

“And yet I’m here.” The mundane undercurrent of the conversation did wonders to calm Matt’s battered nerves. For the first time in days he felt like something more than a extraordinarily large pest. “Should I leave?”

“Morning Mass won’t start for another two hours, unless you’d prefer to stay for that.”

“No- Father- I won’t be doing that.“ Matt said. He should have ran off ages ago, but the continuing conversation with another person enticed him to stay. 

The priest nodded to himself. “And you- are you-“

“Yes, I’m blind.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask, I’d already figured. Are you on your own?”

“For now. Maybe for a while. I’ve considered- getting help”

There was a brief quiet. “You seem to get around just fine.” It wasn’t clear which statement the priest was referring to.

“Eh- I suppose.”

Matt allowed himself a moment of self imposed silence. He wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed since he’d last held a conversation, it felt stilted and awkward, but that was almost a relief. It was mundane.

“You said this was done to you- do you want to elaborate?”

“Truthfully, I don’t.”

“That’s alright son.”

Something compelled Matt to continue talking. “I allowed an- entity- to influence me. It convinced me it would give me power, and I bought it. I didn’t know it was there, but I should have been able to tell something was wrong.”

“How did you get rid of it?”

“Someone else did that part- he punched it out of me.”

The priest strangled a laugh before it could escape his lips, but Matt heard the sound anyway. “It worked?”

“No.” Matt’s tail swished, cutting the air with its spade tip.

“The Devil is gone.”

“Is it? Because it doesn’t feel very gone.”

“Son.” This time the word sounded nearly patronizing, as the priest’s dutiful patience finally reached its end. “You wouldn’t be sitting in a pew, calmly discussing your problems, after peacefully curling up at the foot of the altar, if any external evil still had a hold on you.”

Matt picked at the base of his horns. He could feel the beginning of a protest rising in his chest, but he couldn’t find the words he wanted and ultimately kept his mouth shut.

“You can stay for as long as you like, but I’m about to start preparing for morning mass.” And with that the priest stood and returned to the altar, lighting the incense at the very back of the apse. When the scent drifted towards Matt, he nearly heaved. Alas, his empty stomach kept him from vomiting all over the narthex.

However, the priest took no notice of Matt’s display, and proceeded to place a large tome in the podium shelf.

“That’s sandalwood. You’re burning sandalwood.”

“I- yes?”

“It’s giving me a headache.”

The clergyman’s demeanor changed, he turned in a semicircle, trying to figure out whether he should move towards the incense or its victim. By the time he’d snuffed the flame, Matt was already shaken to his core. The scent itself had only been unpleasant, and Matt’s reaction to it was really no different to his reaction to animal droppings or rotting meats, but that wasn’t what had actually upset him. He’d been in close quarters with blessed sandalwood before, it smelled like turmeric mixed with pine, it was common in churches, it was supposed to help ward off evil spirits.

By the time the priest had caught up with Matt, he was already excusing himself from his pew and heading towards the west wing of the building. The priest a took a desperate hold of Matt, partly by the fur of his ruff and partly by the tattered cloth on his neck. “Calm down. Sit down and think about yourself before you do anything drastic.”

Matt stopped only out of an obligation to explain himself. “I’m fine. Father-“

“Liu.”

“Father Liu, I am just fine.“ He was scrawny, rank with the filth of NYC, and his newly acquired fur had matted into crud-dried knots. But that wasn’t what he’d meant. “I appreciate your curtesy, more than you know. Especially after I practically broke in- but I should not be here. I don’t belong here.” Matt’s heart skipped like he was telling a lie, and he couldn’t quite tell if he was.

“You don’t know that, if you were not supposed to enter this church, you wouldn’t have.” It had been said with such conviction that Matt second guessed himself. If nothing else, this priest had now become fully invested in his wellbeing. And Matt was guilty to admit it to himself, but that made him feel better than he had for what felt like a long time.

“Now, Daredev-“ Father Liu stopped himself from using the name he knew Matt by, apparently unsure if it would cause further upset. “I don’t know what happened to you, because you’ve barely told me. I can’t promise I can help you, but you’re only hurting yourself by running away.”

“You’re right.” Matt figured, but that didn’t stop him.

On his way out he considered the dish of holy water, he challenged his luck and crossed himself. If it had an effect like acid, at the very least he would make a dramatic exit.

Nothing happened when the water touched his skin, and the motion of his arm did not split his torso into halves.

Instead he caught his horns on the archway as he bent down through the exit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will have a nice fluffy Matt/Foggy reunion, I promise. 
> 
> Also I swear I’m actually going to explain the mechanics of the demonology going on here. I’m not religious myself, but I did do some homework on the subject, so if anyone would like to correct me or see my sources that would be great!


	3. Veritable Apocrypha

Elizabeth Kenya knew what was happening the moment she saw the man put on a mask from the corner of her eye. He had been smoking. He took a long drag, spit out the cigarette butt and then slipped the black ski mask over his face. Her store was being robbed.

This was going to be alright, she told herself as the man entered through the automatic doors. She was going to survive, she thought as she looked at the pistol in his hand.

This wasn’t strictly ‘her store’, this was just a minimum wage job, he wanted money, she’d give it to him. It was gonna be okay, he was going to take his cash, and she was going to talk to the cops. The corner store manager had briefed her about situations like this, armed robberies are rarely fatal.

Liz was impressed by her own resolve as she kept herself from hyperventilating. She was still visibly scared, but at least she had maintained some dignity to her panic.

He brought the gun up, and aimed it in her direction. Liz wordlessly opened up her cash register.

“No, you come out here, I come over there.”

The man’s voice was muffled through his woolen mask, and Liz stupidly asked him to repeat himself.

He stepped closer to her, repeating himself with pure malice in his voice. “I don’t trust you with the money.” He continued. “I’m going to take it myself. You come out first.”

Terror pulled at Liz’ heart. She didn’t know what he was trying to do, but it wasn’t normal, she hadn’t been told how to respond to such a scenario.

She complied with what the man commanded of her, stepping out and raising her hands in the air. Hot tears were welling up in her eyes, and she couldn’t stop thinking that crying would make things worse.

Before he could cross the distance to the cash register, before he even got close to Liz, something shattered the glass window she’d first seen the man through. At first, she assumed it was a vehicle, simply based off the force it had hit the front window with. Then she saw his face, followed by the rest of him.

She ducked down beneath the checkout desk and covered her head with her arms and knees. The ground shook, she heard gunfire.

Alone with her thoughts, she realized what was happening. That was Daredevil.

She’d just been saved.

When silence fell on the other side of the counter, she crawled out from her hiding place and interrupted it.

“Oh thank fuck. Thank you-“ Liz figured that thanking god was some sort of faux-pas in demon-human relations. “-devil. Fuck- I’m sorry I’m swearing- Thank you.”

Daredevil stared at the ground blankly, like her thanks had taken him off guard. “It’s fine, I’m glad you seem alright.” He finally replied, he didn’t even make eye contact with her.

He looked bad, ill maybe, not just the horns, the whole getup. His clothes were practically dishrags. His ears twitched in some unusual manner she couldn’t help but interpret as frightened.

It was apparent he didn’t want to stay, teetering between the window and the fallen robber. Liz was inching up to him when he leapt up and out of the building, gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Poor bastard, it was cold as the witch’s tits out there, and she had the vague sense that he was built for warmer temperatures.

 

——

 

Things were beginning to look up for Foggy Nelson. After he’d gotten sick of languishing in self pity, he had picked himself up and had begun to piece his life back together. He was actually a little proud of himself, he was doing job interviews, working on selling the old office. 

He’d written out one, maybe three, goodbyes to Matt.

Things weren’t good, but he’d kept them from getting worse.

He’d gotten a voice mail from Karen. She said ‘I’m alive, please don’t worry about me’. It wasn’t a very effective message, as he was still extremely worried about her, but it was nice to hear her voice again.

She hadn’t responded to any call or text after that. Foggy assumed she was attempting to politely cut ties with him. It hurt, but after what had happened, he understood the thought process. He missed her though.

He still missed Matt too.

While he was beginning to clean himself up he’d initially taken to jogging, a few days of that- something he couldn’t bring himself to enjoy- he began taking long, scenic walks around the city.

The walks were nice, they played a significant role in salvaging Foggy’s mental state. It reminded him the world was still turning, and that abated his sense of hopelessness more than he imagined was even possible. Especially considering-

He knew The Beast was still roaming the streets, he’d seen photographic evidence, but he simply didn’t care. It wasn’t like The Beast didn’t know where he lived, especially if it had absorbed Matt’s mind into itself. That was what Foggy had assumed The Beast meant by ‘digesting its host’.

Foggy wasn’t even scared of it anymore, he was furious. If it came across him on a dusk walk, he’d make The Beast fucking sorry it had ever made eye contact with him. Foggy knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against the demon, but he didn’t care, he wanted to hurt it.

He hadn’t even registered that other people on the street might be a threat to him until it was too late. Now he was being pursued down a sandy waterway.

Polluted river water lapped at the shore as Foggy debated speeding up. This guy had been walking behind Foggy for a while now, down various rarely used alleys and eventually into a rank-ass waterway. Foggy had originally been checking to see if he was actually being pursued, but when he man continued to follow him, he led his stalker down the most obscure and unpleasant path he knew of, trying to throw the guy off. 

It wasn’t working, and now they were well-hidden from the rest of the city.

“Hey you, leisure suit, how’re you doing?” The guy asked when they were both alone, passing under brick bridges and tripping on discarded garbage.

Foggy stopped beneath a bridge and stood his ground. He didn’t say a word.

It probably would have been a better idea to run, but Foggy was pissed, and tired at the world in general. At least this guy probably wasn’t going to eat him.

“What, you want my wallet? My phone?”

“You’re goddamn-“

The guy was cut off by one of the loudest noises Foggy had ever experienced firsthand. It started as a roar, deep and guttural, and then it began to flatten, growing increasingly hollow and ghastly until it sounded like an impossibly huge woodwind instrument.

Foggy recognized the wretched bugle. That was The Beast’s roar, except it somehow sounded worse this time. Now it was angrier, longer, somehow the feral shriek managed to convey human emotions like possessiveness and contempt. This time it was no longer an animal’s cry, it had become something like a statement. A complex threat.

Foggy turned to face the demon, but the sand beneath him shifted, his legs wobbled with fear, and he plummeted into the riverbank. Something wedged itself into Foggy’s side- glass- a bottle or cup that had been cast off the side of the bridge.

He screamed so loud his throat became immediately sore, but that was nothing compared to what the guy who’d been following him was doing. The Beast had lunged over Foggy’s fallen body and collided with the man. The stalkers terrified yowls were downright bloodcurdling. He’d been screaming since The Beast had first made its presence known.

It was a surprisingly bloodless affair, The Beast swatted the man to the ground with a loose swipe, pulling him up and then dragging him to and fro on the sand.

Afterwards it wasn’t a fight, more like a dog with its hold on a rabbit, The Beast would manhandle the human figure, growling and hissing simultaneously as it dug in its claws into Foggy’s assailant. With a flash of fangs, The Beast attached it’s mouth to the man’s arm, shaking free a pocketknife. In comparison to the folding canines, the steel weapon looked like some sort of joke.

Then The Beast let go and allowed the guy to run away. He was sobbing, even as he fled.

Foggy was crying too.

Somehow this was even worse than the first time he’d been in close proximity to The Beast. Its appearance had become downright ghoulish over the past few weeks, the remains of Matt’s costume hung off of its frame like black garbage bags, its tail was scabbed and the bases of its horns had been rubbed raw.

The regal evil Foggy had seen when The Beast confronted him above ground had been completely destroyed, replaced by something savage and enraged.

Foggy would have seen it as a satisfying fate for the wicked thing had he been of a sounder mind in that moment.

Instead he was screaming until The Beast began to approach him, giving him a good look at what was still very much Matt’s face. It was talking to him, in Matt’s voice, soft and whisper-y like it was trying to lure him out. That brought Foggy to reality in an instant, and rage kept him from feeling any pain as he ripped the half-broken beer bottle from his side and hurled it at The Beast’s head.

To Foggy’s surprise, the projectile found its mark. The Beast reacted to it too, skittering backwards on the wet sand.

That reaction stirred something in Foggy’s mind, it was nigh comedically undignified, everything about the creature was, it was such a sharp contrast to the Hand leader he’d nearly been mauled by.

“Foggy it’s me.” It whispered. “I won’t hurt you, I won’t even touch you if you don’t want that, but I can’t just leave you under there.”

Foggy stopped breathing for a few seconds, his heart might have faltered along with it.

As whatever it was continued to speak, Foggy found himself staring at its fangs.

It cautiously approached him on hoof and knuckle. “Foggy, I need to get you home, or to a hospital, but you can’t stay here.“

His eyes were a dull blue, obscured by layers of greyish mucus. 

As Foggy began to understand what was happening, he felt actual, real, joy begin to overtake his thoughts.

Matt! That was Matt! Not Matt’s body being puppeted by some hellspawn, but the real genuine article! It felt too good to be true, especially after Foggy had spent so long believing the worst- but looking at him- seeing how ragged and nervous he was- Foggy believed him one hundred percent.

”It’s you. I- you’re Matt.” He whispered. 

Foggy was crying again by the time Matt had crawled beneath the bridge with him. He absolutely reeked of sulphur, if Foggy could smell it from a few feet, he couldn’t imagine what Matt was smelling. Unless he’d gone numb to his own odor.

“Oh my god Matt, you look like shit.”

Matt just nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“Not even the fucked up goat legs, you look like someone threw you in a garbage compactor. Jesus Matt, what happened to your tail?”

Foggy had pulled the rope-like limb from out behind Matt’s back, where he could see that it had been gnawed. Had Matt done that to himself?

“Rats.” Was Matt’s only response. “You aren’t bleeding as bad as I thought you were, I don’t think this needs stitches. Definitely going to need some disinfectants though.”

Foggy accepted the change in subject. “That’s good, I just want to go home.”

Matt nodded. ”I’m going to pick you up now.”

Before Foggy could come to process what that would entail, he had been hoisted up with two hands. Matt was holding him like a teddy bear, one arm beneath his legs and rump supported his weight while the other held him to Matt’s chest.

His fur was surprisingly soft, the whole ruff on his neck had the fine texture of human hair, and the stink of brimstone was almost tolerable. That odor was masking something else, something even more unpleasant.

“You reek, have you been living in a garbage dump?” It would have explained the rats.

Matt dodged the question with a joke, one rumbled directly into Foggy’s ear. “I’ve lived here my whole life.”

It was a piss-poor deflection, and the full reality of the situation was still crashing down on Foggy.

“What the fuck have you been doing? I thought- I hadn’t realized you were even alive. I saw you on the news and I figured The Beast was still in control. Matt. I had trouble sleeping because I thought you-it- was going to creep into my bedroom and tear me apart.”

Matt had been carrying Foggy up onto the rooftops when Foggy finished. Foggy could hear his breathing, hard and forceful.

“You were calling my name after Danny rid me of it, I figured you knew. Most people who saw me knew. I didn’t know-“

Foggy had already conjured up a few guesses why Matt had kept himself hidden for so long. Now he knew. Foggy couldn’t say it was unjustified, he knew Matt already had a few complexes about being shunned. “But I’m glad it’s you. Matt, I’m so glad to see you again.”

“Me too.”

Matt was moving fast, even without tools he could practically glide over the city skyline. As is, he could clear massive bounds high above traffic with his digitgrade legs. They weren’t far from Foggy’s place now.

“Matt, I’ve got an idea, you drop me off at my apartment’s garage complex and I’ll be back with some supplies.”

“Like, a blanket? I can’t stay there, too many people could see me if I oversleep.”

“Like shampoo and towels, I can’t let you into my apartment if you’re going to corrode a hole in the sofa.”

Matt’s head shifted on Foggy’s shoulder, if he hadn’t already been holding onto him it probably would have been a hug. “How are you going to get me into your apartment?”

“Stairs?”

“What about the doorway?”

“I mean the fire escape stairs.”

 

——

 

Matt Murdock was nearly asleep on the garage tarmac when he heard Foggy boarding the elevator. The lift hummed to life as Foggy pressed the uppermost button. He’d gotten back surprisingly fast, especially considering that Matt wasn’t entirely sure of he would even return.

He hadn’t expected Foggy to be this accepting in the first place.

Foggy made two trips, one for two jugs of water and a bottle of head and shoulders, the second for two jugs of water, a variety of towels, and a sponge.

Matt could smell the antibacterial bandagespatched onto his side, but he didn’t dare mention it.

“Alright, first things first we gotta get rid of the shredded rags.” Apparently, Foggy had a set plan.

Matt probably should have done that a week ago, considering how nasty the torn fabric had gotten. But it was the only thing resembling clothes he had, certainly the only thing that fit him. They’d been the last remaining scraps of a regular human life he’d had for the past two weeks.

“Don’t worry buddy, I brought a horse blanket. It’s not like I haven’t seen-“

“Horse blanket?” Matt tested the two words he had never before heard in succession. What in God’s name was a horse blanket? And why did Foggy have one on hand?

Foggy gestured to an object Matt had assumed was an unusually thick towel. “It isn’t clothes, but it’ll cover you up. It’ll fit too, it’s basically designed for a draft horse.”

“Why would-“

“It was a gift from my cousin, she wanted to give me the whole horse too.”

Matt shed the last scraps of black spandex, eager to change the subject. Foggy immediately poured the first bucket over his body and head, before lathering shampoo over his back up to the crown of his head. The water had been warm when Foggy had first brought it to the garage, but by the time it reached Matt it was just as cold as anything else outside in the Manhattan winter.

His legs twitched as the chilled water ran down to his hooves. He buckled slowly, allowing his arms to slip out from beneath him until his chest was level with the pavement.

“Hey, don’t you even think about falling asleep. You are going to finish the job, I am not grooming your fuzzy ass.” Foggy continued to untangle the long fur on the nape of his neck even as he complained, and Matt very nearly fell unconscious.

A soapy hand slapped him on the temple, then forced a bottle of shampoo into his clawed hands.

“I’m nearly certain that you can still clean yourself, Matt.”

Matt murmured slightly as he finished the procedure.As he pulled grit from the space between his cloven toes, the thought of Foggy’s couch had never been more appealing. He hadn’t realized the full extent of the horrible state he’d been in until Foggy forced him to fix it. Not only had he been transmogrified and marked by The Beast, but he’d let himself become a walking obscenity. He pulled things out of his fur he’d only previously come across on sewer rats.

Foggy chimed in towards the end, taking a rubber brush to Matt’s shoulder and back, finally stopping each stroke at the base of the tail. As Matt clawed a tangle from beneath his neck, he realized he had an undercoat, an unfortunate sign that he would be shedding some time in the future. By the time Foggy fastened the horse blanket around his neck and waist Matt was too tired to protest. He didn’t even notice as bandages were wrapped around his tail.

 

——

 

Foggy told Matt to sleep on the bed, and even that barely fit. Foggy’s mind was racing, torn between two trains of thought, on one hand, he couldn’t let Matt run away again, not under any circumstances- but on the other hand, he couldn’t accept that Matt was stuck like this. He paced, and he realized how very little either he or Matt knew about this situation.

Perhaps this condition was treatable. Maybe it was a sign of a greater problem.

Worst case scenario, The Beast was still inside of him, biding it’s time.

Best case scenario, Danny had made a minor error that could be fixed in a day’s time.

Danny.

Suddenly, Foggy remembered he was aquatinted with an individual with real knowledge about this kind of thing.

He briefed Danny on the situation via a text, it was the first time he’d actually used the man’s number, and he sincerely hoped this wasn’t going to some baffled Rand secretary. He would have called had that not posed the risk of waking, and potentially upsetting, Matt.

Foggy didn’t even read the text he’d received in response, by then he’d crawled into bed beneath Matt’s oversized frame. Before he fell asleep, he heard a low throaty sound, like a purr translated through a nightmare. The noise might have frightened Foggy, had it not coincided with Matt gently pressing his horned head into his back


	4. Merit Mysterious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sincerely sorry about the huge delay.  
> Honestly, the only reason I got this chapter done today was an Eastern Lubber Grasshopper. Because flightless locusts make excellent writing buddies.

Foggy awoke wrapped in something soft, warm, and heavy. He was so comfortable he didn’t even stop to consider that the silken pelt wrapped around him was breathing. In fact, he was drifting back into the realm of sleep when he was startled awake by a hot, wet, rough object dragging itself over the top of his head. The sensation was followed by a soft huff, both of which alerted Foggy to the actual, living thing wrapped around him.

Matt had just licked him.

It was hard to tell if that revelation was comforting or frightening. Matt mindlessly continued to sleep-groom Foggy’s head, providing Foggy with a third opinion, Foggy decided this was disgusting. He wormed his way out of Matt’s shaggy embrace and dusted the loose fur from the sweatpants he’d been sleeping in. The pantlegs still had holes from where The Beast had grasped Foggy with the brunt of its claws. 

Matt grunted in his sleep. Foggy frowned. At the very least, Matt looked significantly healthier than he had the previous night.

The horse blanket looked ridiculous on him, framing his face like a too long turtleneck. Goofy as it was, he also looked quite comfortable.

One of his horns had left a long scratch in the headboard of Foggy’s bed. As Foggy noticed the damage to his bedframe he drew a hand through his hair, flinching when he felt the wet cowlick on his head. Nasty.

Matt kicked in his sleep, maybe he was dreaming about chasing down druglords, maybe he was having a nightmare. Was the first option not also a sort of nightmare? What truly positive things did Matt have to dream about?

“Oh, Thursday- sure Karen.” Matt answered in his sleep, slurring into the pillow. He growled a little, but the noise sounded oddly placid, polite even. “I- been busy for a day’r so. You’re fine.”

Foggy watched a little bit longer, hoping to catch Matt in the act of licking at his pillow. When it didn’t come to pass, Foggy moved on to the bathroom. He rubbed the back of his neck and found coppery fur clinging to his nape.

It finally hit him, Matt was shedding. That was almost funny enough to make Foggy smile. Counterproductively, it was equally as disturbing as it was endearing.

He had needed a shower anyway, not so much because he was unclean but because a shower was an innately relaxing thing, and he could really use some relaxation.

When he got out, he texted Karen, ‘Matt’s back, he’s not possessed anymore.’

No response came.

‘I’m pretty sure he’s not possessed.’ He added. ‘Have you been following the news?’

No response still. 

He brushed his teeth. Slid a pair of slippers over his bone-cold toes. Picked up a throw blanket from the couch and tied it around his shoulders.

The doorbell rung, and it took Foggy a moment to recall that he’d messaged Danny last night. He probably would have ignored the ring had he not remembered. It was early, Foggy wasn’t sure of the exact hour, but he knew he had been caught completely unawares. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to forewarn Matt.

Why hadn’t Danny sent a heads up, a simple ‘hey, I saw this. Expect me at sunrise.’? But then Foggy remembered what Danny was like, and it made perfect sense.

He stared through the peephole.

Danny was not dressed like a regular person on a wellness check: he had his bandana-like mask tied over his face, his clothes looked straight out of a seventies kung-fu movie, massive jade beads hung from his neck and wrists, all that alongside an embroidered silken cape. As he opened his door for the eccentric billionaire he sighed, Danny’s shoes had deer antlers sewn into their sides.

Foggy came to the conclusion that this getup was some cultural thing, like KunLunnian exorcism gear. Why Danny didn’t have an accent, he’d never know; he wasn’t sure if that would have made the man seem more or less out of place as the arbiter of his family’s wealth.

“Matt’s asleep right now, if you can do- what you’re gonna do- without waking him, that’d be fantastic.”

Danny squinted through his mask. “That’s a bad idea, I need to know how he’s feeling.”

“He’s not going to be happy- I know th-“

An audible movement from the bedroom stopped Foggy mid-sentence. The shuffling was followed by the creak of a door, then four heavy footsteps.

“I heard my name.” Matt said “Who’s there- Danny?”

“I’m here to see you.”

“Oh?” Matt’s voice conveyed stroppy misery, and Foggy waited for the other shoe to drop.

“See if I can help you.” Danny course-corrected. “Like a check up, Foggy suggested it to me.”

Foggy cringed. It was true, but he didn’t want Danny to go and tell Matt that. He doubted Matt would take the courtesy call in stride.

Matt crept into view, ears swiveling as he focused in on the front door of the apartment, carefully scanning both Foggy and his guest. He said nothing, but he did nod an acknowledgement.

It was impossible to tell if Danny was unaware of or unaffected by the tense atmosphere, either way he took a bold stride towards Matt, igniting his hand with a golden energy.

Immediately, Foggy regretted inviting Danny in, and quite frankly wished he hadn’t even thought to call the man. In that moment, he was absolutely certain that he’d betrayed Matt’s trust; Matt was going to flee and it was going to be his fault.

But instead Matt laid down like a hooven Great Sphinx, flinching only slightly as Danny brought an energized forefinger to his temples.

“Tell me what’s going on.” Danny inquired. 

Matt looked offended. “Look at me! Your exorcism didn’t work. Danny, I don’t even know if I’m a human being anymore-“ Foggy could picture Matt’s fur bristling against the blanket.

“It worked.” Danny had grabbed Matt by the horn now, pressing into its ridges with a supercharged hand. “The Beast is gone, it cannot come back, that’s what’s important. All this, it’s superficial, it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s it, this doesn’t matter? I’m just collateral damage?” Hooves stamped against the tile, once, twice, until a tile chipped in two. Matt’s eyes had begun to track towards the door erratically, Foggy half-expected them to lock with his own. Then Matt recoiled in on himself, as if he was trying not to vomit.

Foggy couldn’t imagine what the neighbors were making of this racket. How could he possibly begin to explain this? Perhaps by pretending he’d gotten a pet caribou?

As Matt lashed his tail in frustration, he slashed a notch into Foggy’s coffee table, just narrowly missing the sofa. The impact made Matt still, as if he had only just then become aware of the space he occupied.

Danny brought his other hand down on Matt’s clothed shoulder, sending some golden pulse through his entire body.

Matt hit the ground hard, and his breathing grew forceful. Then he was calm.

“Fuck this.” He had said it plainly, almost resigned. “Look at me- and- Please, for the love of god, help me.”

“I can’t fix your appearance-“

“That’s-s’not what- I have other concerns.”

Danny waited for Matt to continue, rubbing his massive back the way one would comfort a sick child.

“You- when you pacified me just now, you would have manipulated my chi. Tell me, the energy, is it human?”

“Your chi is consistent with a body of your current size, and other classifications. But trust me, it is still yours. It’s just you in there. Your foolhardiness is palpable. ”

Matt rolled so that his head was facing away from his company. Danny took the opportunity to pull back the collar of his blanket, gently running a pale, unignited hand through the fur of Matt’s mane.

Danny pulled a silver flask from his belt strap and rubbed its contents over Matt’s horns.

He unwrapped the bandages from the tail’s base, treating the wounds with his own mystical light.

Matt was paying attention to the damage he’d done to the tile, placing the porcelain back into place like a puzzle. His ears were trained on Foggy as he did so, silently waiting for some disapproval.

“You don’t understand.” He grumbled.

“You’re right Matt, but I am trying.” Danny replied.

Chi and human energy were not Foggy’s strong suits, he hadn’t the faintest clue what Matt and Danny had been talking about earlier. But he knew he’d made some sort of mistake by calling up Mr. Rand, Matt looked like he was about to go into shock.

He was going to show Danny the door before Danny stood up on his own. “This is out of my experience, I doubt he- look- you two should go to Strange, even if the Doc can’t fix- everything, he’ll be able to do a hell of a lot more than what I’ve done.”

“Thanks for trying man- and thanks for keeping this brief.” As he left, Danny pulled a medallion out from under his toethung and handed it to Foggy.

“What-“

“It’s good luck, it wards off evil, it helps diminish stress.”

Foggy stared at him.

“It’s all precious metals, it’s probably expensive.” He said as he hung it on Foggy’s neck.

He left. Foggy was glad, he didn’t hate the guy, he wouldn’t have asked Danny over if he did, but that had not been helpful. He’d obviously meant well, but just giving him full access to Matt, the first morning he’d gotten his partner back? That was an awful idea.

He should have waited- he’d only made that text because he was still a little scared of Matt.

Now Matt had to know he was scared of him. The fucking idiot, he was going to go back to the sewer or something. In that moment Foggy was absolutely certain he’d ruined everything further from the degree they were already wrecked.

And now he had the confirmation that Matt was stuck like this. Or at least partial confirmation. Maybe Strange could do something, there was a small chance, hope wasn’t completely lost.

Even if it was, that wouldn’t be the end.

It was impossible to tell how Matt was reacting to this. He was curled up on the floor, still picking at the destroyed tile.

“I shouldn’t have flipped out like that.” He muttered.

“It’s fine, I can fix it with grout. I’m sorry- I thought he’d give me- look, Matt I shouldn’t have called him without you knowing I didn’t think he’d just show up.”

Matt’s head was hidden behind his shoulders, leaving Foggy unable to see anything but his horns. From that angle, he closely resembled an undomesticated animal, something more appropriate for the African savanna than a New York apartment.

“No, I needed that.” Matt replied after a while. “I’m glad I know- more than I knew before.”

He sounded distraught and Foggy didn’t understand exactly what he was talking about.

“You wanna watch some television? I’ll turn the AC on. Or maybe I can break into your place and get your books or something?”

Matt turned to face Foggy’s voice and smiled, but shook his head in the negative. “Don’t worry about that, you’re in my will, they’re gonna be sending my crap over here sooner or later.”

Foggy had absolutely no response for that. He took a seat on the sofa and retrieved his phone from its cord.

“Just so you know man, I’ve got a job interview on Monday.”

“What’s today?”

“Thursday.” 

Matt yawned, and Foggy took special interest in the complex musculature of his fangs. A structure in his cheeks was pushing the teeth forwards to glint in the morning sun. He was troubled, Foggy could see invisible gears overheating in his mind. But he wasn’t going on to say anything about it, Matt had survived enough prodding today.

Time passed. It was an uncomfortable silence, weighing down on both men.

“Fog, how much of that conversation with Danny did you pick up on?”

“Something’s wrong with- your internal something? Your chi?” Foggy felt like a doofus saying that word, as he primarily associated it with huxters trying to sell healing crystals.

“I’m not, I’m not The Beast. But-”

Foggy didn’t understand.

Matt continued. “But I think I’m the same thing that it was.”

Foggy still didn’t understand. “You aren’t a monster- or a demon- you definitely aren’t a demon.” He was kicking himself for letting Matt know he was nervous with this transformation. Matt was a self destructive son of a gun, and Foggy was making it worse.

“That’s funny, because I give off the same energy as a demon.”

“I don’t care. You’re still you-“ Frustration finally got to Foggy and he snapped at the moping behemoth. “and I can tell because you- you’re beating yourself up over something that isn’t your fault. Matt I’m not scared of you because you’re a fucking idiot. I don’t know what you need, I can’t tell what you’re trying to say- so what you’re a demon! What’s that even mean? You obviously are yourself-“

“I don’t know what it means.”

“Then you can’t assume it means the worst.” Belatedly, Foggy realized that Matt was speaking from a Catholic standpoint, essentially having gone to a place Foggy couldn’t follow.But it wasn’t like could he pretend the demonic wasn’t an option at this point. “You’re a pain in the ass, but you’re a good person. You’ve got a drive to help people because you can’t stand to hear them hurt- I, personally, do not believe you’re hellbound- if you even can die.”

Matt gave a nervous chuff and Foggy veered from the subject of immortality.

“Remember back in college when we’d hound people into playing pool with you, and you’d always kick their asses at it and they’d get pissed? We’d make them bet money and everything, we were awful!”

“You aren’t distracting me-“

“I’m not trying to. I’m just talking.”

Foggy took victory in Matt’s sigh.

 

——

 

That night, a sense of the routine had already begun to set in.

Matt had cooked dinner- and it was absolutely fantastic.

He’d complained about the size of the bathroom and shower, but ultimately managed both. 

Before crawling to bed, he and Foggy discussed making an appointment with Strange. Neither man was confident they would get any useful help from the visit, but at least they wouldn’t have to pay for the service.

Then Matt disappeared. He left the bedroom and fled down the fire escape. By the time Foggy noticed, he was gone.

Foggy paced. Matt did this kind of thing sometimes, if anything it was a facet of his personality, but Foggy still lost sleep. He sat sentinel on the couch and he remembered the first night Matt had gone missing. He didn’t know why he bent over backwards for this asshole.

That was a lie, they were friends, and he enjoyed Matt’s company. He really wanted his long-time partner to be okay. Selfishly, he didn’t want to be alone after everything that had changed so quickly.

Matt probably needed him too.

But he couldn’t keep himself from falling asleep.

And he woke up in bed, like a repeat of the previous morning, Matt was on top of him. The horse blanket was beginning to smell like sweat-sulfur, which probably meant Foggy was going to need to buy more. And maybe find the spare change for a heavy duty washing machine at his dry cleaner.

Also, Foggy realized, Matt had returned. He’d just gone daredeviling last night, simple as a noun.

Matt was drooling on him again, apparently one of them had broken the cord of Danny’s medallion in the middle of the night, as Foggy stepped on the thing while trying to wake Matt.

His yelp of pain was more effective than any alarm.

Matt picked the gold piece up with his clawtips, placing it in one of many junk drawers. Every drawer in Foggy’s apartment that didn’t house silverware eventually became a junk drawer, Matt had picked up on that while cooking dinner.

Foggy turned the news on, Matt made him caption and mute it. That was probably a good thing, as the subject matter quickly changed to a massacre of ex Magia in Long Island, one apparently orchestrated by The Punisher and a reported accomplice.

In the corner of his eye, Matt was making omelets, then muttering to himself after he took a careful whiff of Foggy’s margarine. He seemed surprisingly well-adjusted, all things considered. Foggy wasn’t going to dump another stressor in his lap.


	5. Better than Worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://imgur.com/a/EFCGPYC
> 
> *shows up a month late with a new batch of illustrations*

Matt had always been good at keeping himself out of sight, but in the past few weeks the ability had become a lifeline. His talent for avoiding observation was now the only thing granting him his freedom. He certainly knew he wouldn’t be outside like this if he didn’t trust his ability to hide himself.

So he eavesdropped on the city the same way he always had. It almost felt normal. Then he’d overhear a commotion of some kind, move towards it on instinct, and then stop, and he’d have to really consider if his presence would actually have a positive effect on the situation. He couldn’t merely stop a mugging anymore, not when the sight of his shadow would send both parties into panicked hysteria. Unless there was a life in danger, he couldn’t let himself act foolhardily.

But still, it was a routine, and he desperately needed some form of regularity in his life. It was vastly superior to spending the entirety of his time lounging around Foggy’s apartment, desperately attempting to fit on the three seater sofa.  
  
Foggy’s patience with him was absolutely astounding, and he kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. So far, Foggy had been lenient to the point of apathy, he hadn’t even stated his opinion on Matt’s return to vigilante activities. It stood to reason that he too was waiting for some sort of a household implosion. As if any major criticism would send Matt into a downward spiral that would break them both. Perhaps he was right.

Matt couldn’t tell if his proprietor had even raised a brow when he’d turned up in a new, form fitting costume. All Foggy had done was ask if he’d made it himself, before laughing when Matt replied with the truth, that he commissioned someone he knew. Kind as Foggy was being, Matt knew it was at least partly due to pity. Foggy hadn’t cared about the new suit, he was just glad Matt had spoken with someone other than himself.

Objective truth of the matter, things could have been better, but they also could have been a lot worse.

It was decidedly a transitional period between a disaster and something else. Potentially a transitional period between two disasters.

Or maybe things were about to get better.

Matt was heading to Foggy’s apartment when he scented it. Saltwater and blood, along with other, fainter things, gunpowder, burnt oak. It was hard to tell the quantity of the substances at such a distance, and even harder to pick it out from the all consuming smell of megacity gutters. But he could still tell it was coming from the docks, and he knew that blood didn’t smell like fish.

When another gust blew from that direction he was certain it was human blood.

There was traffic between Matt and the coastline, loud, blaring, and congested traffic. Matt knew he couldn’t avoid observation, but it didn’t matter, he moved on despite the likelihood he would be spotted. The grisly scent had stirred him back into old habits. He was still thinking clearly, he knew he couldn’t take action without drawing attention to himself, regardless he didn’t particularly care about the ruckus he was about to cause. 

Not this time.

He leapt down to street level, breaking into a run the moment his hooves touched the pavement. Slow moving cars stopped completely. Onlookers shouted. Matt effortlessly bounded over the fence that separated the street from the docks.

When he landed on the other side, it was already obvious he was alone on the wharf. At least, alone in terms of the living, metallic blood-smell had stained the air with a heavy presence. There was a single building along the dock, something like a mechanic’s shop, filled with boat motors and half-assembled motorcycles. As Matt neared the entrance, he could taste the bloodied air inside.

A crowd had gathered around the fence, murmuring as he pushed open the door.

He was suddenly glad to have an audience. To have an alibi.

“Somebody, call the police, there’s been a shooting.” Matt inched back from the scene, not daring to disturb the dead. “There’s been a massacre.”

Matt hadn’t even realized the shapes on the building’s floor were bodies until his radar had pulsed directly over the human shapes. The tactile nature of his own radiolocation suddenly became sickening, like he’d pulled back a curtain to find himself basting a corpse.

Small, still bodies, each one frozen rigid by the unforgiving winter. Laying on the floor, he could have mistook them for anything had it not been for the scent of blood. It might have been days since they’d been shot, cold weather preserved the dead like nothing else.

If there had been snow, he wouldn’t have even scented the blood.

It was impossible for him to decern how many bodies there were, not without stepping inside of the building, accidentally destroying some vital evidence without knowing it. Or even incriminating himself.

Had he already incriminated himself? He couldn’t imagine getting a fair trial when he looked like- what he looked like.

Matt backed further away from the shack, warily keeping himself away from both the dead and the crowd. Some of them were directly talking to him, he didn’t know why that bothered him the way it did. The voices didn’t scare him or anger him, but he couldn’t stand to hear them.

With his ears sealed shut against his head, he still struggled to think straight. It wasn’t the voices throwing him off. He had to go.

Even before The Beast, he would have left before the police arrived. He’d already done everything he was supposed to do. He wasn’t morally obligated to stick around in the dry frost, talking to terrified cops. He just had to find an exitway.

Now he was inching too close to the mumbling crowd. With his attention divided it was easy to forget about the streetlights behind him. He was brought back to reality by a breach of privacy.

A man had reached out through the fence.

“Don’t pet me, I’m not an animal.”

The man backed up faster than Matt considered necessary. “Sorry, it was supposed to be comforting- Just trying- I didn’t mean to offend- I-“ He slipped back into the crowd before he finished his sentence, apparently too disturbed to continue. With a involuntary chuff, Matt wondered what would have happened if he had attempted to swat the man away rather than warn him off verbally. Dread rose in Matt’s gut, most likely, he would have seriously injured the man, leaving them both terrified and shellshocked.

He closed his eyes behind his mask and pulled himself off of the pier, getting himself out of sight as quickly as he could.

That had been awful, but it could have been worse. In some small way, Matt was surprised at how well it had gone, in the sense that he found himself able to walk away from it.

——

“Maybe it’ll rain before it snows? It’s already December, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it take this long.” Technically, Foggy was talking to himself, but he figured Matt was somewhere in earshot.

Although, he assumed he looked perfectly loony to any onlookers. Hopefully the formal attire he wore would do a bit to make him seem slightly less unhinged. Either way, what would folks say, they saw a delusional man muttering to a wall in Greenwich Village? How entirely ordinary.

“Y’know, no matter what happens today, we should keep in mind that Mr. Strange is doing this for free, so if nothing happens, we can just let it be water off our backs.” Foggy continued.

The office building on his left elected not to respond, neither did the street sign on his right.

Recalling the address he’d been given, Foggy took a right. Just a block away from his final destination, he was getting anxious about meeting the doctor. The only description of the building he had was a foreboding ‘you’ll know it when you see it’.

Vague nullities aside, at least Danny had given him a date and an hour to arrive at. Which did imply a certain amount of forethought. Still, Foggy half expected to turn up uninvited.

He couldn’t help but think he was making a mistake by turning to another mage (magi?) after the incident with Danny. It had been worrisome enough to see Matt shut down on the floor of his apartment, he didn’t want to see the same thing happen in a new location.

When Foggy saw the Sanctum, he knew he has found the right building. It was someone had shelled out an old French church and turned it into a modern American mansion, or perhaps the other way around. Adorned with masterfully crafted filigree, gargoyles, and an absolutely massive, circular window bowing out from the building’s roof. Foggy looked at it and thought: ‘yep, a sorcerer lives here’.

As he approached, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was horribly out of his element. The structure itself was remarkably intimidating, at least it was once you knew what the building actually was. Tinted black windows gave him the sense that something he couldn’t see was watching him. It was simultaneously mundane and ominous, if anything, the fairly mundane appearance of the thing made it more frightening. Was it too late to call this whole excursion off? Earlier, Matt had voiced his doubts too, it probably wouldn’t be hard to convince him to pull back.

But his hand was already on the doorbell, and he didn’t actually know if Matt was listening to him.

He rung the bell. Gongs chimed from deep inside the building.

Nothing happened.

Foggy refused to ring the doorbell again. He would have turned back then and there if Matt hadn’t decided to make his presence known.

“Just open it!” He yelled from somewhere unseen, probably the sanctum’s roof.

The door pulled open without resistance.

Immediately, Foggy’s senses were flooded with the sheer grandeur of Doctor Strange’s domicile. It moreso resembled a library than a home. Rows of bookshelves kept him from properly estimating the size of the room he’d entered into, but even with that he could tell the ceiling inside was somehow taller than the roof from outside. Ballet music was playing from somewhere he couldn’t pinpoint.

An overwhelming sense of vertigo kept him in place until Matt spoke again.

“It’s been a while, not that you missed anything.” He was standing on the bannister of a staircase, breaking some unspoken law of physics by keeping such a large body perfectly balanced on a carved wooden barre. He was still wearing the absurd horse blanket Foggy had given him, now layering it over the new Daredevil costume he’d had himself fitted for in the last week. Matt’s mask was off and he was reared up, regarding the ceiling above.

“Is- the doctor- not home or?”

“He’s here.” Matt gesticulated with his tail and Foggy followed the motion to a familiar-ish man sitting amongst piles of leatherbound books and metal trinkets. The man, Stephen Strange apparently, supplied a curt nod, but didn’t break eye contact with the tome in his lap. He was well dressed, obviously a man with a flair for the unusual, but he looked quite professional in a gilded cape and latched coat. Foggy found the man reassuringly feasible and only a little bit like a modern yankee Merlin, it wasn’t hard to picture the doctor running an antique shop or a cultural center.

“Aye,” His voice was low and purposeful, surprisingly so, oddly like the narration of a Twilight Zone episode in that regard. “There’s tea and pastries in the direct upstairs, don’t go down any hallways.”

Foggy suspected that he had in fact missed something, but he also managed to glean most of the significant information via guesswork. It stood to reason that Strange was researching Matt’s condition, leaving Matt himself to idle around the foreroom, waiting for any news either good or bad.

Halfway up the steps Foggy became aware of a floating pillow on the second floor of the building, taking up a space usually reserved for coffee tables. He hesitated for a moment just to gawk at it.

“Matt you’ve noticed the pillow, right?” He whispered.

“Yeah, it’s- Weird.”

Foggy considered adding a jovial ‘Strange even.’, but he stopped himself out of fear he’d make an enemy out of a literal sorcerer. “MmmHm, what else should I be aware of?” He said instead.

“The halls are making me dizzy, and I can’t tell why.”

“You think you should sit down then or-“ Foggy took a seat beside the floating pillow, surveying the room for the aforementioned tea.

Matt shrugged but stayed put.

Foggy found the tea on a silver platter that floated listlessly from room to room. There was no hall between the room he currently sat in and the room the platter had entered from, so he figured it was safe to venture into. Still, he didn’t want to take a chance, so he admired the other room from his red leather chair.

The first cup of tea was green chai, the second was earl grey. Foggy refused the third cup politely, thanking the silver tray as he would a butler. His head was spinning.

Eventually, Matt gave up the ghost and situated himself on the carpet beside Foggy. Moments later, he was producing a throaty, bellowing sound, like he’d been doing in Foggy’s bed nights before. Calling it a purr did the noise a great disservice, but Foggy didn’t have the experience with animals required to provide a better simile. Either way, the noise seemed to be a good thing, only coming up when Matt was looking for or appreciating companionship- or sleeping.

“Get up you idiot!” Foggy whisper-yelled, shaking his head by the horn. “What are you thinking?”

“Being asleep, I wasn’t thinking much of anything.” He grumbled.

Foggy was close to tearing his hair from his scalp. It seemed magic was very bad for his stress levels. But waiting for medical information was worse.

Finally, Doctor Strange made his way up the steps, his grim countenance chilling Foggy to the bone. “About the cavern you were overshadowed in, does it still exist?” The question was calm, measured.

“No. The Beast took the altar with it.” Matt was curling in on himself.

Both men looked properly defeated. Foggy knew why, even if he didn’t know much about the supernatural, he could read between the lines.

“No, no no.” He put a consoling hand on Matt’s nape, inhaling an exhaling quietly denials. He hadn’t expected this to be fixable, he didn’t want to deal with any more magic, but he desperately wanted things to go back to normal, and it hurt to see that ship finally sink.

But Matt had already steeled himself. He just kept talking. “What else can be done? Something, some compromise. A halfway fix?”

“You could survive outside of that vessel, overshadow a body the same way The Beast overshadowed you.”

Suddenly Matt was upright and upset. “Possession is not an option! I already said I wouldn’t, that I can’t!”

Strange’s frustration was palpable. “I am thinking, I am in the process of thinking! Unless you have a better idea, please let me think.”

Foggy was reeling. Apparently Matt possessing a human body was an option now, fucking hell, of course it was. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of that? “Matt you could possess me. Like, temporarily, we could come to an-“

“No! Of course not.” Matt’s whole body went stiff, and Foggy could actually feel him pinch a few muscles in his leg. He was floundering, squatting on four legs with his focus darting madly around the room. Twitching ears, lashing tail, Foggy half expected to be knocked over by accident.

He probably would have doubled down on his suggestion had he not thought of a potential side effect. “Would that turn me into another-“

“No.” Strange’s voice was tense, he was properly agitated now. Foggy had completely forgotten to me wary of the wizard. “Murdock says that is off the table, and I can’t help but agree with him. It’s too dangerous, especially considering the stress it would put him through.”

Foggy had to bite his tongue to keep himself from throwing in the towel and calling this whole day a shitshow. Even if all parties involved would likely agree with him, saying the truth out loud would just worsen morale. “Do we at least know what the rules are? Because I still don’t know what any of this actually means, and I’m starting to wonder if it actually means anything at all. I just offered to have myself possessed, and after saying that I realized I have no idea what that would have entailed.” After speaking, he couldn’t shake the feeling that his words had been entirely incoherent.

If it was rambling, it did a good job of getting his point across. Or maybe his outburst had just quelled the mood.

A wave of exhaustion engulfed the room. Even the floating pillow dipped a little.

“May I excuse myself, and my friend- it’ll give you time to think.” Matt said. It hadn’t been a question so much as a statement. Immediately after speaking he began to walk into the neighboring room, leaving Foggy with no choice but to follow. “I do owe you an explanation, and probably an apology too- “ As he spoke he wandered listlessly around the room, pacing like a caged tiger. “But you already know I’m not a human being anymore. Now I don’t know what that means any more than you do, and I’m not eager to find out.”

He sat on his haunches, hooves impatiently tapping against the decorative tile floor. “Strange said, and I believe, that what’s happened to me is primarily cosmetic. Still, the transformation isn’t just skin deep, but that isn’t what matters— what matters is that it isn’t complete. I’m sort of set on a precipice, a halfway point between a human and something- else. But I am myself, objects that were bound to my person a year ago still recognize me, I’m not just a wretched thing that Danny hypnotized into thinking it’s Matt Murdock.”

Foggy had never thought otherwise, at least he hadn’t after reuniting with his colleague in the waterway. But apparently Matt considered this assessment a revelation, relief had edged into his voice as he explained that he was still partly human, as if that was the only thing that had kept The Beast from repossessing him, or the only thing that had kept his personality intact. Maybe it was. Really, Foggy was just glad he’d affixed himself a silver lining.

“So it’s— at a sort of standstill. Things aren’t as bad as we initially assumed, but— they aren’t going back to normal either.” Matt put a certain reverence behind the word normal, and Foggy desperately wanted to remind him how unusual his definition of ‘normal’ actually was. But speaking his mind probably wouldn’t have helped either of them cope, so he let Matt continue his soliloquy uninterrupted.

“And that’s all I’m looking for, a return to- everything being rightside up.” Matt ghosted his fingertips over inscribed lamps and priceless gems, just taking in the atmosphere. “I can’t be stupid, I don’t want to go around testing myself for supernatural abilities, and I don’t want to bite the hand- I don’t want to do anything I can’t understand. So don’t offer to-“ He dragged a claw over a particularly ominous looking hourglass, and Foggy felt an actual chill run up his spine.

“Don’t do that, the last thing you need right now is a curse.” Foggy interrupted, remembering exactly how alien his surroundings were. “I mean, touching his stuff, don’t do it.”

After an offended glower, Matt stopped fidgeting with the decor. “Foggy, I know you can’t support me forever, and I don’t want you to feel obligated to keep me afloat. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I’m going in for a job interview tomorrow. Remember? You aren’t the person I’m worried about right now.” Despite appearances, they were both in the same lifeboat, and he wasn’t going to let Matt hog all the misery for himself. “Besides, if I didn’t have you right now, I’d be alone.”

Matt exhaled.

Eager to make sure he hadn’t gone too far, Foggy moved into a hug. It was anatomically challenging and obviously forced and Foggy was pretty sure the end result resembled a headlock more than a warm embrace, but it didn’t matter because Matt reciprocated in an equally ungainly manner. Foggy was considerably certain that Matt was technically picking him up, it was hard to tell with his face tucked between thick, coppery fur and a horse blanket.

“I hope I’m not interrupting something.” Doctor Strange stated.

Foggy definitely felt a fall before he landed on his shoulder blades. Getting himself back upright would have been an embarrassing process had Matt not found an even more embarrassing way to stand him up. He picked him up like a doll and simply set Foggy on his feet.

“I still don’t have a proper fix for your situation, Mathew, but I do have something that could be very useful for you.” He held a small golden ring in his hand, raising it up over his shoulder for emphasis. “It won’t change your appearance, but it will prevent others from considering you anything out of the ordinary.”

It was immediately manifest that the ring was laughably undersized on Matt’s hand. He could fit it on his pinky claw and nothing else. Foggy foresaw it would have a long shelf life alongside Danny’s luck medallion.

“It can be refitted, I’ll need a week to gather the materials, but this is nothing more than a setback.”

“I got it on.”

“It only takes effect if placed on the ring finger, it’s a fail safe.”

Foggy wondered why an enchanted ring would be designed with a fail safe. However, Matt didn’t falter in the slightest, he seemed genuinely grateful. When Foggy suggested leaving, Matt scheduled another appointment. Foggy was surprised to hear himself volunteer to accompany him again.

As the duo left— Matt out the rear skylight and Foggy out the front door— it seemed some emotional constipation had left the air. Which was strange, because Foggy had the distinct feeling that he’d just spent three hours being told things he would have eventually deduced himself. Maybe it was just nice to hear Matt finally come to terms with his situation, and maybe it was a little nice to hear him verbally state what Foggy had been thinking for days.

When he reached his apartment, it had begun to snow. He was alone for the time being, he hoped that would last for a brief duration longer. Ideally enough time to take a breather and appreciate the snowfall from beneath the blankets he’d brought onto the couch.

If he felt motivated, he might just sweep the loose fur from the floor.


	6. Pythons and Pit Vipers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god, oh fuck, I’m so fucking sorry about the delay. This chapter suffered so that the next one could could flourish, i promise chapter seven will be longer, better written, and more engaging.
> 
> It was supposed to be the latter half of this chapter but then I royally screwed up.

Almost accidentally, Matt found himself returning to the docks. Just like the night before, he’d been well set on his way to Foggy’s apartment when the same small building drew his attention. It sat unassuming on the edge of his radio net and once he put a memory to the slight shape, he found himself beset by the need to investigate. This time it was morbid curiosity that drove him to stray from his path, rather than the smell of death. A marked improvement in that regard.

He didn’t intend to stay for any length of time. Unless he was presented with new information he couldn’t force himself to ignore.

In the time he’d been gone, the area around the jetty had been barricaded off by the city. There was still a minor police presence at the pier’s edge. Gruff voices came into earshot before Matt could sift any distinct words from the ambient clatter of the city.

The first thing he understood was “So it’s Castle vs Weyerhaeuser’s men? Just let them rip each other to death, its the food chain y’know.”

Matt flinched at the invocation of Frank Castle, not out of a misplaced fear of the man, but because he had been an absolute idiot for not realizing what he was dealing with the night before. Of course that had been Frank’s handiwork. Had he even noticed the bullet-fire? He should have recognized the deceased as drug pushers, it wouldn’t have been hard to scent their product. He had smelled gunpowder, he just hadn’t made the obvious connection. He’d been too distracted by the crowd to think clearly. Or more likely, he was just excusing his own poor critical thinking skills.

“And how do you suppose Daredevil fits on your food chain?” Chimed in a new voice. At the sound of his own name, Matt nearly tumbled to the pavement below.

“I’m not saying anything for certain— I’m just telling you, Castle’s targeting Weyerhaeuser, so he’s shooting away all his assets. Now I’m figuring the Devil knows more than we do, but I don’t think he’s playing this game.”

Matt figured he knew significantly less than this man thought he did.

“You just wanna see a fight don’cha?”

“I’m just saying, Castle shoots Weyerhaeuser, the Devil drags Castle to hell, we have two less problems to worry about. That’s efficiency- it’s the natural order of things.”

The other cop scoffed.

Against his better judgment, Matt continued his approach. Even if he wasn’t making a wise choice by venturing closer, he realized he had nothing to fear from their handguns. That prospect left an odd taste in his mouth, he was bulletproof, two armed cops posed little to no risk to him. He was just worried about curtesy.

If anything, he was afraid of frightening them. The two were alone, except for a trio of forensic scientists working inside the building.

Without letting himself reconsider, he padded down to ground level, now callused knuckles painlessly supporting his weight against concrete. People on the street pointed him out, gasping and stumbling backwards, but none got in his way as he treaded up to the two officers.

Dogs kept their distance. Traffic stopped, it did that often. People in balconies above gawked down on him. Matt was reminded of why he preferred to work in darkness.

The two officers noticed him long before he reached them.

Matt stepped over the tape barrier, chuffing as he did so.

“Well, speak of the devil.” Said the first cop, his tone was low but bemused.

The other cop made a strangled noise of the diaphragm, his heart was beating fast, almost irregularly. His hand twitched towards his pistol before he surrendered. He ultimately backed himself against the chain link fence, jumping at the sound of the metal rattling behind him.

Matt sat, first, rather experimentally, he sat on his hocks and leaned forward on his hooves. After that proved itself uncomfortable, he shifted onto his haunches, it was animalistic, but effective. He wrapped his tail once around his body, sitting as straight as he could without losing his balance. Ideally, his posture would convey a nonaggressive professionalism. He probably looked laughable, or alternatively, nightmarish.

“Hello,” He began, feeling simultaneously submerged and exposed. “I’d like to know what happened here last night, if either of you know.”

A beat. Matt extenuated the length of it in his mind.

“Like what? What do you want?”

Matt’s ears drooped, it was a calculated display of disapproval rather than an involuntary expression. He was getting better with that. “I want to know why I found five corpses here last night.”

“There were seven.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t count.”

The other cop hadn’t interjected yet, but he was slowly beginning to calm. Matt wasn’t sure what he made of that yet. Did he want these two to be afraid of him? It depended.

“Please answer my question,” He tuned his focus on the first cop, trying to figure out how to appeal to the worldview he’d expressed earlier. “I want to prevent it from happening again.”

He knew it had worked before the man opened his mouth.

“Some time, middle of the day, Frank Castle shot up a criminal meetup with a companion. Forensics figures they timed the attack with some nearby construction, trying to mask the noise— it lines up with the time of death. “

“Why do you think he went after these men in particular.”

“One was a woman.” He paused. “He’s been targeting the Weyerhaeuser family recently, they do a lot of drug running- you know.”

Matt knew. He nodded, pointedly raising his ears, hopefully it would be enough positive feedback to make the man continue.

“I dunno what they did to piss him off, or the other Punisher lady, but they’ve been coming down hard. I figure it’s about how much they’ve been putting in police pockets recently.”

The other officer chimed in. “That’s not how Castle works, the Weyerhaeuser’s are small fry, it’s something personal.” His heartbeat spiked, his scent changed, he was lying.

With a courteous smile, Matt excused himself. His tail swayed as he moved, tapping the spade end against the fence beside him. It took incredible, superhuman, proprioception to keep the hooked end from getting itself caught in the wiring. If either officer noticed his display, neither were affected by it.

He had a more-than-cursory knowledge of the way Sean Weyerhaeuser operated. The man was a once convicted drug lord, probably not a multi millionaire, but more that rich enough to run his own operations. Real world rich, but not New York City rich. Matt had never known that Weyerhaeuser had been running contraband out from the docks, but he knew exactly where the man lived. 

More importantly, he knew how Frank Castle worked. Frank always worked his way up, and in a smaller outfit like Weyerhaeuser’s, it wouldn’t take him long.

 

——

 

With a curt blessing, Father Liu dismissed his congregation. The majority of the assembly stood on cue and began their way towards the door, he followed after them, making sure to shake hands and palaver with those on their way out. It had been a regular, sparse, Wednesday mass. The few who’d stayed behind were a specific sort of a specific sort, the exceptionally pious, the exceptionally desperate, and the rather lonely.

Liu allowed himself a once-over of the few, taking care to note their faces, looking for individuals his did and did not recognize. Whenever he could help them, he would, but that didn’t seem to be the case this afternoon. He walked back into the empty narthex, assessing his plan for the rest of the day.

First things first, he had to clean the eastern hall to accommodate the youth group that would be hosted tonight.

He entered the hallway before he turned on the light.

The sound of shuffling captured his attention. Even in the shadows, he could tell the hall was occupied by something massive. With a jolt of cold terror, he flicked on the hallway’s LEDs.

Daredevil remained intimidating in the harsh lighting, but at least he was now identifiable. He looked, better, cleaner, than he had before. Ratty, pungent rags were replaced by a skinsuit, mask, and cloak. He nodded and hummed an understated greeting. Father Liu decided he was no longer startled.

“I’m glad— glad to see you back after your last visit. You just missed mass.”

The great figure bowed his head before responding. “I’m a creature of habit, I suppose.” There was obvious discomfort in his voice, the feigned levity only made his poor nerve more obvious. “I couldn’t keep myself from coming back.”

“Is that good? Do you want to be back?”

“Of course, Father, in more ways than one.”

Liu smiled, entirely unaware if Daredevil registered the expression. He gesticulated towards the nearest doorway, hoping to bring the massive creature into a slightly less ostentatious location. He personally trusted his ability to explain the situation to any churchgoing passerby. However, it seemed likely any more attention would startle the devil into panic.

His decorum went appreciated and Daredevil slipped through the doorway the moment it was offered to him.

Closing the door behind them, Father Liu offered up some small talk, not that he intended to drag the poor man into any intensive conversation. “Then, how have you been holding up?”

His response was surprisingly short and directly to the point. “I’m good.” It wasn’t prosaic, not even remotely, but Liu found himself believing him. 

“That’s wonderful, I can tell you’re doing better.”

Daredevil lowered his head. “Mmh.” It was amusing to hear such a small noise come from such a large creature. “The past week’s been easy. I’m not on my own anymore, I’m holed up at an old friend’s apartment.”

“Good.”

By now he had attempted to slide into a resting position, but cowed out due to apparent discomfort against the linoleum floor. He readjusted unsuccessfully, hoof and hock being shifted into every anatomical possibility before he finally gave up.

“Would you like me to bring a bean bag out from the youth group room? You could sit on it.”

Daredevil’s mouth tightened in stroppy embarrassment. “That won’t be needed, I won’t be staying much longer. I originally came here to thank you, but I waited when I heard you holding a service.” He spoke slowly, pacing his words as if he wasn’t sure what he thought of them. His tail moved slowly, like the pendulum on a grandfather clock. “I liked what you had to say about mercy and expectations- but I’m getting off topic now. I want to say thank you, for talking to me after you found me. I really needed someone willing to just talk to me, treat me like a person. You helped me, a lot.”

Father Liu wanted to dismiss the praise, stop to drive home the point that Daredevil had gotten back on his feet of his own volition. But he didn’t. “Well I’m honored to help you son, you’re a good man, and I believe in what you do. And I’m starting to think I like you as a person.”

The other man’s fur fluffed out, preening. His smile was slight, but affected.

“Daredevil-“

“You can call me Mike- Mathew actually.” His ears swiveled back, pushing into the ruff of his neck. “My name is Matthew.”

Liu thought the religious allusion fit the man. Not really in an individual sense, but just in the regard that he’d been named for a biblical author. 

“Thank you, Matthew. I’m not quite sure if I introduced myself the last time we met,” He reached down to shake one of Matthew’s load-bearing hands and felt a bit inconsiderate when the man had to change his position to return the gesture. “Father Dan Liu.”

After that introduction time passed at a leisurely pace, and Matthew offered to help him prepare for the arrival of the night’s youth group. It came as a surprise and a disappointment when he finally excused himself.

He lowered the bean bag he’d been carrying like a pack animal, and frowned. 

“It’s getting late isn’t it?”

Father Liu regarded the wall clock, and remembered that his companion was blind. “It’s nearly seven, the sun went down only a few minutes ago. There’s still some time, the kids won’t start showing up for an hour or so.”

”I apologize, but I’ve got somewhere to be tonight. I can’t let night fall without me.” 

Liu understood what he was talking about, he watched enough local news to have a clear idea why timing was important. Matthew confirmed his suspicions anyway.

”It’s- It’s work I suppose. It’ll either take me just tonight, or the rest of the month. You know, easy work.” His smile was lax and confident, bearing large, pearly fangs.


	7. Infernal Circle

It was forethought rather than luck that had made certain everything had lined up perfectly this afternoon. Frank had taken heed of the day’s snowfall and used it to help cover their tracks. Better still, the snow had fallen heavy enough to completely hide the hatch they’d used to enter New York’s underground.

Karen followed him down the steel tunnels, listening to the sound of her own boots against the metal floors. Left to her thoughts, she wondered how many of these subterranean passageways were obscure public knowledge, and how many had been completely memoryholed.

Whenever the metal flooring would give way to soft dirt, Karen would see other people’s bootprints alongside her own. Even if they weren’t fresh, they still had a ghostly quality to them, reminding her that her and frank were not the only individuals making use of the labyrinth. It was an unexpectedly frightening idea, and she drew her weapon’s sights slightly away from the ground. Maybe the gun in her hands was making her paranoid, or more likely, the winding catacombs were playing with her mind.

She forced herself to focus on the subject at hand: her eventual destination, and how Frank planned on getting them there.

A number of tunnels extended out from Weyerhaeuser’s basement. The subterranean framework had been constructed during the era of alcohol prohibition, and now Weyerhaeuser used them to smuggle modern contraband into his home. God knew what else he’d done in these tunnels.

Her ears were ringing, she didn’t really know why.

A wave of anger drove Karen’s legs a little harder. She wanted to get this night over with, she wanted to do this.

Calling Weyerhaeuser a shitbag was an understatement, but that wasn’t the totality of it, for Karen this was personal. He’d very nearly ruined her life. From a criminal underworld standpoint, he was small fry, but to a bright young woman, fresh out of high school, just the shadow of his influence had been enough to drag her into debt and addiction. He had been just one of many, many things that had made Karen’s early life hard. If her then-boyfriend hadn’t paid her liabilities, she scarcely knew if she’d be alive today. It stood to reason she might have ended up in a worse situation than ‘dead’. Now that boyfriend was dead. It wasn’t Weyerhaeuser’s doing, but it didn’t really matter.

“Looks like we’re close.” Frank grumbled, gesturing towards a passageway completely indistinguishable from any other.

As she followed, metal grating gave way to ceramic tile. Two turns later, they’d been fed directly into a large round room with four tunnels extending outwards and a single staircase leading upwards.

Overhead, she could make out voices. Loud, tactless screaming from too high above, as insulated by multiple floors, for her to make out a single coherent word.

It stopped.

They took a moment to look at each other, both considering their approach. Without speaking, they decided to wait, taking their time to figure out exactly what was going on in Weyerhaeuser’s three story home.

Earlier Frank called it a mansion, Karen had corrected him, there wasn’t quite enough space. From a purely linguistic standpoint, four thousand feet of space did not count as a mansion, the term ‘mansion’ applied to buildings with eight thousand square feet or more. She had been a woman who worked with words up until a few weeks ago, the habit was neither dead nor old.

It was surprisingly good conversation, petty banter like that.

There was a space heater in the basement. It was a small but sorely appreciated blessing.

The conversation above them took a sudden turn, now there was yowling and accusations. Karen couldn’t make out a single word being said.

A man was pleading in a voice only just loud enough to hear.

“I know that guy.” Frank stated. “He’s a dirty cop, and an easy source of information.” He seemed deeply unaffected by the situation topside. “He’s lucky he’s made it this far.”

A scream speared the air over their heads, it got higher and higher due to unbroken, worsening pain. The yowling reached a castrato pitch. Karen cringed, Frank snorted a small laugh.

When his amusement faded, Frank gestured towards the basement stairway. With a curt nod, he and Karen moved upstairs in tandem. One ahead of the other, both as silent as their gear allowed.

The ground-floor level of the building was oddly labyrinthian, hallways intersected in odd ways, leading into wood paneled rooms, walls lined with racks of cigar boxes. When they finally reached a living room with a proper staircase, the voices above had stopped.

Frank stopped moving before anything obviously disastrous happened. It was probably just combat experience, but in that moment it felt like he had developed a sixth sense.

With a flash, Karen saw nothing but red.

It took her a moment to realize that red lights had turned on, rather than some supernatural event. She turned to Frank, and saw his brow had shifted a bit down, not conveying any emotion in particular. She took a step back.

It was unspoken, but they both recognized they’d just been caught.

Above, a voice yelled. “Outside, s’the fucking motion detector.”

Karen stared out the windows on her left. From her limited vantage point, the yard looked empty. Something was going wrong, something was already extremely wrong.

Frank moved first, whispering a litany of “Shit! shit! Damn!” as he withdrew.

They’d just lost the element of surprise, she didn’t know how it had happened, and she didn’t know exactly what that meant, but she could feel the dread running up her back.

There was a moment when Karen’s legs had locked up beneath her, and she genuinely thought she wouldn’t be able to retreat. But before she could doom herself, a clatter from the floor overhead sent her running. She chose her escape route at random, and therefore found herself taking cover in a wine cellar.

Behind her, through a large stone wall, she heard screaming and gunfire.

Ahead of her, facing the way she’d just came, she heard more of the same.

And that didn’t make any fucking sense. She didn’t know how many of Weyerhaeuser’s cohorts were armed and out for blood, but there was only one Frank, and that dirty cop was very obviously not in fighting condition.

Which meant there was some unforeseen element something she wasn’t prepared for-

Something was growling, she spun around to face the threat behind her, only to realize it originated from beyond the wall. Its tone lowered and flattened, revealing some non-animalistic intent behind the noise. The addition of purposeful malice sent terror down into her marrow. That wasn’t the kind of sound one heard in the natural world, it was acted, vengeful, and absolutely all consuming.

With that, something shook the wall separating Karen from the growl. In an instant, the heavy barricade of oak and stone clattered onto the ground. Tile cracked and wine bottles shattered.

In the dark hall, Karen saw shapes. They were moving closer to her, she aimed her gun, staring down the sights and staying as still as humanly possible.

Then a man yelped out from behind the demolished wall. He ran into view, pursued by a-

Good fucking god. He was being chased by a nightmare. Initially she just saw the horns and shoulders in silhouette, and began to make out a horrid mishap of animal features. Horns that weren’t entirely goat-like, sweeping back like a large antelope, the boarish mane, thickest at the top of the neck and standing on end like a massive mohawk. Its shoulders were feline, bobbing with its steps, leading down into the hairiest pair of human arms she’d ever seen. The hands bore no fur, ratlike in that regard. It walked on its knuckles, giving off an oddly primeval aura. Its body was broad, muscular, tapering off into powerful elklike haunches, then twin, cloven hooves. The tail however, was entirely unearthly, rope thick and tipped with a triangular spur.

Impossibly, the creature raised its tail like a scorpion, holding it up, and then bringing it back down with the crack of a bullwhip.

She flinched at the pop.

It was only then that Karen noticed it was wearing clothes.

Fuck. Oh shit. Oh fucking shit- that was what Matt had been turned into. She hadn’t even really considered the reality of what she’d heard about Daredevil until now, she had known, definitely. But based off the tight feeling in her chest, there had been a difference between knowing and understanding.

Even now, she wasn’t sure if she understood her situation.

The creature’s victim stumbled on his own feet, tripping over a wine bottle that had been knocked askew when the wall fell down.

Karen had to temper her breathing in order to keep herself from hyperventilating. Some long-neglected pack predator part of her brain was panicking, begging her to run from the room and find the rest of her tribe, as if she was trapped with an auroch bull rather than a fucking demon.

On the abstract note of ‘her tribe’ she wondered where Frank was in this moment, the gunfire had died down, leaving her in an empty quiet.

She was desperately trying to avoid making any noise, trying not to draw its attention. The air was so still, even the slightest sound would stick out like a sour note.

The man writhed on the floor, apparently struggling with an ankle, he drew a gun from his belt, but he didn’t have any time to aim for the creature. It, Matt, inhaled, and then roared. It started like a typical, leonine bellow before it hollowed out and began to reverberate. It was a shofar reverberated tenfold. Once that trumpeting came to its natural end, the beast roared again, just as all-deafening and empyrean as the first.

In a bout of mad, animal terror, Karen fired her automatic into the creature’s flank. It jumped in shock, then turned away from its previous quarry. Physically, the beast was unfazed.

It tilted its head, taking her in. The motion was horribly familiar.

Whatever was left of Matt charged her with claws extended and horns lower. It leapt over her, so she was pinned between two massive arms.

A red mask covered its eyes, but it wasn’t hard to see the dulled sightless gaze behind the lenses. Detachment crept into Karen’s mind and there was a long delay before she realized the creature was talking.

Its voice was completely garbled, incomprehensible, but it wasn’t goring her against the hardwood. 

“K-kckrraarrhhhrhgren-hhrr.” Something resembling intent was creeping into Matt’s voice.

“Please, Matt, I know you’re in there. Please remember me, I know you can fight it, I know.” She pleaded.

It’s ears flopped down, like it had understood, and felt bad. “RrrRRAorrr-d nnrr, lrraughrenn sttt-myrr.” It was very obviously trying to talk with some great difficulty. Matt-Beast released her from between its forearms by lifting one arm to hold its throat. “Karrrrehhen, rrremerrrm-“ Now it was starting to sound more like Matt had, still too low, but she’d definitely just heard her name.

“Yes! Matt- Matt, I know you can control this, you don’t have to hurt me, you’re winning. You know who I am, I don’t want to hurt you and you don’t have to hurt me.”

Matt-Beast shrunk back, and held itself low, struggling to keep below Karen’s eye level. She figured this was Matt completely coming to cognizance, fending off whatever untamed demon that had been. “Norrt goihhinggh to, rr’m noht fighrrhing rrr contrrol. Fighhting my ‘rroice. Sorrry, surr sorrryy. It’s just me, I nooh you. Rarrring like th-t makes it harrrderrr to talk. I won’t hurrrt you.”

Karen was trying to understand what she was being told.

‘I won’t hurt you’ had been loud and clear, and she was rather certain Matt was in complete control of his body.

And that made sense, she’d heard well enough that the recent news regarding Daredevil hadn’t placed emphasis on monstrous behavior. Although her life had been chaotic in the past few weeks— it had been messy even before she’d called Frank for help— but she would have heard about it if a diabolic kaiju had been marching around Manhattan.

She should have known better, kept herself calm.

She’d shot him. Her stomach twisted at the thought of what would’ve happened if her bullets had been an effective weapon against the behemoth before her.

“Whyyrre you herre? What-“

Matt lowered his hand over her gun, then felt up her body armor. “Ah.”

He stepped away from her, and stood to his full height on four legs. He looked distraught.

Karen followed him onto her feet, and waited to gauge his reaction. His tail moved slowly from side to side, brushing through broken glass and spilled spirits.

After a moment of silent deliberation, his ear twitched, swiveling to face the man Matt had been chasing only moments ago. The guy was muttering, ignobly pulling himself off the ground before landing on a half-shattered bottle. Matt placidly watched as the he fumbled away and into the darkness.

“Thank you for not shooting him.” Matt eventually offered.

Without much consideration, Karen reached out to run her hand through the thick ruff on Matt’s neck. There was blood on her hand and rosé in his fur. She aborted the gesture as she imagined how uncomfortable it would be to rub a regular human neck under the same circumstances.

Although she’d buckled before making contact, it seemed she’d already managed to make Matt uncomfortable. His muscles tensed, and he slightly recoiled into himself.

Karen only realized he was focused on something entirely different when she noted his ears, swiveling to follow something from behind a wall.

She readied for something horrible.

“Oh, Castle’s here- I imagine you were waiting for him.”

Then Matt bristled, suddenly upset by events completely obscured from her perception.

Matt hissed. Then something else hissed, flying through the air to land at his feet.

It blew, releasing only white smoke. Instinctively, Karen pulled her cravat over her nose and mouth, pushing her hand over the fabric. Matt moved forward, still hissing.

Before he could do much more, Matt crumpled to the bloodied ground, tranquilized. Slowly, Karen approached the sleeping demon. She ran her hand through the fur on his nape. It wasn’t as coarse as she had imagined it, if her eyes had been shut she could have mistaken its texture for human hair. In fact, he was unexpectedly soft to the touch.

“Sorry Red, but this is going to make things easier on the both of us.” Frank stepped out from the hole in the wall, kicking a broken stone as he did so. He lowered the weapon he’d just used on Matt before taking his time to dispose of the canister he’d fired.

Karen found herself growing slightly lightheaded from the remaining gas.

“This’ll be easier if there’s two of us and one of him, instead of one of me and two of you.”

“If I pass out, it’s your fault.” She supplied. This hadn’t been planned, but she already knew where Frank was going with this, they were going to take him back to their current base. She desperately wanted to protest, but she couldn’t come up with a better idea.

“Hmmf— Weyerhaeuser’s dead, if that’ll help you rest easy.”

He hid his slight smile by turning to Matt, gingerly pressing the palm of his hand against one massive shoulder.

“Shit, he’s bleeding.”


	8. Perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am dying slowly.
> 
> Hopefully this chapter serves its purpose and y’all enjoy it.

Matt would stir himself semi-conscious several times throughout the transport. He’d slightly twist his mind away from his dream, and begin to hone in on his electroreception, taking note of incoherent shapes around him, vaguely realizing that he was situated inside of a moving vehicle.

Wooziness kept him from parsing this information, and he found himself slipping back into slumber, completely disregarding whatever hypnagogic hallucination he was having. It didn’t feel real, and he had no need to concern himself with it.

Later, he felt the cool hand of a girl caressing his cheekbone. Without thought, he leaned into the sensation. She was talking to him in a familiar voice, and he felt rather safe.

If he’d had it in him to stay conscious, he would have scented the gunpowder on her clothing.

 

-

 

A sharp pain entered his shoulder, but he did not stir. His body flinched inwards, knocking something else onto its side. He growled, warning away whatever was cutting into his flesh.

Something pulled his face forward, and he recognized the shape responsible as a human, and he was half-certain he recognized that human. He didn’t understand why or from where but he knew the man as a threat. He was in danger.

Soft materials beneath him shifted as he pulled himself semi-upright.

A woman yelped.

The man clung to his horns, shaking his head as one would to deter a bull. Matt leaned out of the headlock but struggled to stay upright.

The pressure in his shoulders built up the longer he stood, and the feedback from his own radar was beginning to cause him pain. With a splitting headache, he collapsed under his own weight, softly drifting off into a world of static and darkness.

 

-

 

“My hands are shaking, I can’t get these things out.”

“Just tell me what you see, work the bullets out with one hand, keep the entry wounds open with the other.”

“I- his muscles are like corded steel, none of them even hit the bone. But they’re impossible to get out, the shoulder is too firm, I can’t manipulate the flesh.”

“You’ve gotten fifteen out, you can’t stop now. I have his head, he’s secured, just keep going. If his shoulder heals like that he’ll be in pain for the rest of his life.”

“That’s not helping, you aren’t helping.”

“Military breathing, slowly, you can do this.”

”...”

”...”

“These were 16mm, and they’re barely an inch deep, I stand by my point— that he’s bulletproof.”

“And yet-“

“Mm- yeah. Alright.”

“You’re doing well, you’re halfway done.”

 

-

 

With her attention divided, Karen Page cleaned her rifle. Then she stopped and questioned herself, because the weapon wasn’t her’s. The gun belonged to Frank, and this storeroom belonged to neither of them.

Her personal vendetta against Weyerhaeuser had come to an end, and she was in no way obligated to continue operating alongside Frank. She hadn’t been obligated to start either. Although she struggled to admit it to herself, she very much understood that she was here of her own volition.

Taking vengeance because she wanted to.

Unwilling to let herself consider whatever it was she was considering, she forced her gaze onto the ruddy-furred creature laying slack on a pair of mattresses. Bound against the floor with two bedsheets worth of bandaging over his shoulder, he looked rather comfortable. Matt’s countenance was at complete rest as his tail flicked lightly against his rope bonds.

His eyes fluttered slightly open as he slept and he left them open at half mast for a space of a few seconds. The last time Karen had seen him do that while resting had been in a romantic context. She’d woken up beside him and watched his eyes track before he finally yawned himself awake.

Looking at him now, with that memory in mind, it made her feel something like vertigo.

It wasn’t long before she sat down beside him, running her greased fingers through his ruff.

He rumbled, like an old car with a busted exhaust system. When the noise first sounded, Karen was certain she’d just woken Matt up, but as he continued, she realized the sound was being produced unconsciously. It wasn’t purring, but there was a similar aspect to it.

“He sounds like a happy alligator.” Frank provided, making his presence known as he stood in the doorway. “You know, or a horny one.”

“That’s- interesting.”

Frank laughed under his breath, carrying a canister of gasoline over to the table Karen was working at. She thanked him with a nod, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what purpose the fuel had.

As he turned back, Matt yawned, baring curved, mobile fangs. With a ghost of a smile, Frank walked up to the sleeping giant and tugged on one exposed fang, wiggling it a bit in its socket.

Matt shut his mouth without incident. He remained unconscious.

“Look, if he doesn’t wake up in a few hours we might have a problem on our hands. Keep an eye on him, and if his breathing gets shallow, come get me.” 

With that worrisome advice, he left the way he came.

Karen returned to the gun she was tending to. Wetting a grease rag and then tying it around a length of steel wire. Then she pushed her new tool down the detached barrel of the HMG she was cleaning. The rag came out covered in thick black soot, she threw it out, and then found a relatively clean shmatte of the same size. Repeating the process ad-nauseam occupied her mind, keeping her from rethinking recent developments and regretting recent actions.

Not long after that, her monotonous task was interrupted by a rattling of chain against rope. Matt’s snarling sent a chill down her spine before she could reach a reasonable reaction.

“Don’t do that, you’ll hurt yourself! I can just unlock you.”

Matt stilled. His head remained fixed on the ceiling, but his ears swiveled to face her. “Karen? You’re.. here.?” He didn’t seem entirely aware of his situation, but his immediate compliance and recognition gave Karen the confidence to unbind him.

“We had to tie you down to cut the bullets out of your shoulder.” She said, taking a key to the trio of padlocks holding him in place.

He stayed entirely still while she worked through the restraints, even going so far as to stop his breathing. Once freed he rolled onto his back, only then realizing the upper half of his suit had been tied around his waist. His ears flicked from Karen to the floor and back again.

“Do you know where you are?” She ventured. Mentally, she chastised herself, of course he didn’t know where he was, she’d basically partook in his kidnapping. “Do you remember what happened to you.”

Matt shrugged, and the gesture did something incredibly strange to his collarbone, bending it down into the space above his ribcage. “I remember I was trying to find Frank when I found you- and you shot me.” Then he grimaced. “Frank was just here. I can smell him.”

“You just missed him.”

“Well. Aren’t I lucky.” As he spoke, Karen considered how absolutely surreal it was to behold him. Something so innately fantastical and supernatural, just laying there, talking to her and extending the olive branch of a joke. It would have felt more usual if she was conversing with a wildebeest, at least a wild animal wouldn’t have the face and voice of one of her closest friends.But this wasn’t some foreign entity wearing a familiar face- she was now certain this was Matt. This was a harsh reminder of the nature of the world, that she lived in an unforgiving world of gods and monsters.

Matt had always been something a bit ‘supernatural’, by some definition of the word, and that had eventually felt normal. Soon, this would be the same.

“You’re not coming back to work with me and Foggy? Are you?”

She honestly did not know, so she countered his question with a copy. “Are you? How would that work?”

“With luck, I’ll find some sort of a disguise, I’ve already got something in the works.” His brow furrowed, and Karen realized she’d just disinterred a sore topic. “I’m going to be rejoining civilization as soon as I can.”

“That’s good- I don’t know if I’ll be doing the same thing.”


	9. Something Sublime

Two in the morning.

Foggy knew he’d be getting no sleep tonight.

Although this wasn’t an uncommon experience, it was always unpleasant. There was a weight in his stomach that he couldn’t control, general anxiety paired with the understanding that he had absolutely no sway on the people and events around him.

He hated this shit.

Shifting about on his bed was hopeless, whether he moved about intentionally or unconsciously. He breathed slowly, laid on his back, and then his belly, and remained absolutely incapable of quelling his anxiety.

As frustrating as it was to admit to himself, he was worried about Matt, who’d completely disappeared after they’d split ways at Strange’s home.

Logic dictated that Matt would come slinking down the hall any minute now, bruised perhaps, but ultimately unbothered. That was what he did, and Foggy felt almost gullible for letting himself get worried over the right bastard’s well-being.

But he never knew. And that was always the problem. Without reason or warning, bad things happened every night. Foggy rolled over in his uncomfortably empty bed and reached for his phone, he was not going to sleep tonight, and this was him accepting defeat.

He sent Matt a text, only to hear a robotic voice calling his name from the living room. Mentally, he called some individual an idiot, but he couldn’t tell if he was chastising himself or his roommate.

Of course Matt had left his phone laying around, it was what he did with all the other crap he owned.

Matt had, in fact, gotten a few of his belongings back. Using Foggy’s phone to bullshit up a litany of excuses, he’d spent an entire day walking a neighbor through his house in order to gather up the things he deemed important. He could barely operate the device, while the fellow at the other end couldn’t find Matt’s suitcases. Foggy had paid the poor man for his trouble at the apartment building’s entrance.

It was all a bit amusing in retrospect.

Illuminated by the light of his phone, browsing a mindless aggregate website, he was struck by how much he was actually enjoying his current set up with Matt.

Financial pressures hadn’t been the problem he’d thought they’d be after Matt pooled the remainder of his savings into rent and food.

He’d just gotten a job offer. This was nice. It was strange and nostalgic and he felt a little bit proud of himself for reaching this point when he’d been contemplating the end of all things good only a month or so back.

And still he was restless. It was probably a medical condition, but not one he ever cared to diagnose.

His phone buzzed in his hand, but he yawned before he could read the note. Once he closed his mouth the message was gone. Foggy fought with his own apathy for a moment before he pulled down the drop screen.

It was an unregistered number. Something that started with a Long Island area code. The message read:

-It’s Karen. Matt’s fine, but he’s staying with me tonight. Let’s catch up tomorrow.-

Foggy read the message multiple times before he even attempted to formulate a response, by the time he’d begun to type a second message had appeared. This time it wasn’t a text bubble, it was an image of Karen Page sitting alongside a bandaged but conscious Mathew Murdock.

In a sleep deprived haze, Foggy replied:

-ok, i guess ill see you tommorrow tgen-

He woke up in bed the morning after. Pulled himself awake without the aide of an alarm. He stood upright too fast and temporarily lost his vision as a consequence. Trudged into the kitchen to rummage up some breakfast.

When Foggy finally opened his phone, it displayed the conversation from the previous night. Only then did he fully realize what the words meant.

-

  
The past four hours had taught Karen two new facts:

The first of which, was that anything could become ‘normal’ if given enough time. The only thing separating the strange and the mundane was plain exposure. She found this prospect oddly comforting, especially considering she’s singled out the concept from atop a demon’s back.

Secondly, Frank was surprisingly well-versed in the supernatural, but she supposed even the mildest competence regarding the subject would have come as some shock.

Karen was trying to pontificate further when she was physically shaken from her thoughts. The mountain of muscle and fur she was lounging on took a deep breath, and then stretched.

He wriggled again, knocking Karen over. She would have collided with the cement floor had she not grabbed the thick fur on his nape. Matt jolted awake.

“That was your fault, just so you’re aware.” Karen said.

Matt shook her off with a soft grunt. She landed on her back, ultimately unharmed by the four foot fall onto a slightly smelly mattress.

He stood up and stretched, popping the vertebrae in his neck and tail as he did so.

The bandage on his shoulder brought fresh regrets to Karen’s mind. She couldn’t be so trigger happy if she intended to work alongside Frank. Under more predictable circumstances, she could have shot a close friend dead.

“How’s your shoulder?” She dared.

“Fine.” Matt said.

“Are you sure?”

“Well I’m putting my weight on it, and it seems fine.”

She made a discontented noise, but allowed the conversation to die. She owed him more than she liked to admit to herself, and she’d nearly killed him. The past few weeks had seemed so simple, but now she felt grossly incompetent. She felt dangerous, and she derived no power or confidence from the prospect. It made her more determined to continue down the path she was taking, but she couldn’t tell why.

A desire for improvement perhaps? Maybe she just didn’t want to face what she was becoming.

For the next few minutes, she watched Matt pace. The storehouse was large enough for him to speed up into a full canter before he slowed down and turned. He speed up, cantered, and turned ad nauseam. Despite the repetitiveness of it, Karen found herself hypnotized by the athletic display.

It was just weird to witness. An anatomical hodgepodge of horn and bone moving from wall to wall with deft grace.

It was plain to see that Matt was consumed by some nervous thought. His expression was less like a tiger in a too-small cage and a lot more like a stressed out salaryman. 

“Matt, I can see you’re making yourself upset. Tell me what’s on your mind.” Karen’s phone buzzed on the table across the room, temporarily garnering her attention. She ignored it.

“You would be surprised to know how little is on my mind” Blunt pride had made its way into Matt’s voice, and Karen knew she was fighting a lost cause.

She sighed, and then her burner phone began to ring.

Matt’s ears trained onto the sound, but the rest of him remained entirely still. At least he’d stopped his pacing. She probably should have just asked him to stop in the first place.

Annoyed, she walked up to the table and read the display. The caller was familiar, but she couldn’t place where she’d seen the arrangement of numbers before. After a moment’s deliberation she answered the call, cautious but curious.

“Karen, it’s Foggy, I got your message, and the picture- I’m pretty sure I replied to it in my sleep. Where are you two? Where the hell have you been- no- wait- I know exactly where you’ve been and I can’t b-“

“I’m standing in- an undisclosed location. Foggy, would you like to talk to Matt? He’s right here with me.”

“Of course, but-“

Karen lifted the phone from her ear as she passed it to Matt.

Matt frowned in the general direction of the phone and then stepped back. “He wants to keep talking to you.”

After giving Matt a moot glare, Karen steeled herself.

Foggy wasn’t speaking on the other end of the phone, instead she heard fast-paced shuffling.

-

Adding injury to offense, Foggy stubbed his toe on the baseboard of his wall. For a very brief, pained moment, he forgot that there was anything unusual about the conversation he was having with Karen. Then he remembered grainy news footage of a woman wearing a bulletproof vest and a sewn-on skull.

It was impressive, the way old news could make Foggy genuinely mad. He couldn’t even pin down why he was so upset about something he already knew.

Now Matt was talking, Foggy couldn’t make out words but he recognized the voice.

Foggy walked up to his apartment door, looking for the shoes he’d cast off the other day. While turning towards the shoe rack, he stepped on something wooden. The box cracked open underfoot, sending a pencil-sized splinter into his socked foot.

“Son of a fuck!” He yowled.

In one ear he could hear Karen‘s undue concern, in the other he could hear his downstairs neighbor scolding him.

Upon investigation, he realized the thing he’d stepped on was a makeshift sort of package. Thin sheets of wood had been tied together with twine, covering a wrapping of silk tissue, wrapped around a small jewelry box. It had probably been a rather impressive piece of craftsmanship before he destroyed it with an errant foot.

“Tell Matt I just found a box.” He said.

Karen initially asked for a clarification, but ultimately relayed the message to Matt. Of course, Matt had already heard the entirety of the situation on the other end of the line, he’d probably sussed the yelling out better than Karen had.

“In the apartment?” He asked.

“Yeah. It- uh-“ Foggy opened up the final layer of the packaging, revealing a large band of unusually heavy metal. “I think it’s the ring- the one Strange was making you.”

Foggy was pleasantly surprised by his ability to recognize the unusual object. It partly explained why the object had just appeared in the forehall. “Yeah. I think that’s what it is.” He reaffirmed.

“Alright. What’s happening?” Karen asked.

“Nothing, I just started the morning by stabbing myself in the foot- but that’s, that’s fine. I really want to know what’s happening with you?”


	10. Whittle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m getting so close to the end holy fuck. I feel like I’m reaching the other end of the quagmire.

Frank sat alone on a rooftop, taking pleasure in the comfortable solitude as he looked up at the New York skyline. Everything smelled a bit awful, the air was hazy with smog, and the streets below were loud. The sun hadn’t even been up for a full hour, but the day itself was already in full swing. Such was the nature of wintertime in a large city. Commuters and listless wanderers alike followed the clock rather than the pull of any celestial body. 

To Frank, this routine was the natural order of things. He was a traveling man, but the little, pervasive familiarities reminded him that New York was still his home.

A pigeon landed on the guardrail beside him, a mottled piebald thing with a missing foot, it stared at him with mild interest. He shooed the bird off with a wave of his hand. 

After the interruption, he pulled himself upright, turned towards the fire escape and headed down the snow-sodden stairwell. It was about time he went back to his makeshift base. He had guests, for some reason.

If Matt took to tagging along with him the way Karen had- he was quite certain he’d go mad. Crossing paths with Karen in the wake of The Beast’s attempt on nyc was one thing, perhaps even a good thing, but he had no intent on leading whatever sort of nightmare team that was forming in his temporary den. 

He didn’t want to lead Karen down his path either. Not when she was giving something up.

The same gnarled pigeon directly in his path, almost defiant in its complete disregard for Frank’s existence. He walked past the bird.

Frank exhaled a bit harder than usual and his breath froze in the air, clinging to the facial hair he hadn’t shaved that morning. The stubble did a good enough job of obscuring his face as he walked down a populated street, surrounded by a hundred or so people, not a single one had given him even an errant glance.

Of course, they weren’t actively looking for Frank Castle. He was dressed like any other man his age on the street, wearing a woolen sweatshirt and a knit cap.

The walk from his perch back to the storehouse was short, and he had no reason to speed back to camp, so he took heed of the streets. Yesterday’s dirty snow mixed with soil, and week old newspapers lined every curb, garbage overflowed from trash bags. The recent detritus was separated from the older stuff by a layer of grimy snow. 

He turned an alleyway, and looked at the power lines overhead. Pigeons stared down at him. Something felt off, but he couldn’t place quite what. He turned around to see nothing but his own boot prints in the unpaved soil.

Looking forwards again, he saw a massive creature sitting on a rooftop ledge.

“Hi Frank.” Matt said from behind his mask. Frank did not understand the purpose of the disguise.

“Hi.” Feeling rather foolish, Frank raised a hand in greeting “How long have you been there.”

“Whole time.” Matt was smiling. Smug bastard.  

Frank didn’t want to admit that he’d merely been acting on instinct when he checked on the path behind him. Wary as he may have been, he had been dangerously oblivious to Matt’s presence.That was the thing about being overly cautious, sometimes it was a mere bluff, and sometimes the bluff worked.

“Mmhm. I’m going back to base, you’re welcome to join me if you want.”

Matt chuffed, leaving Frank to rely on context clues to determine the sound’s meaning. Without further discussion, he trudged onwards into the alleyway. Frank cast a quizzical glance at Matt as he passed, but said nothing else. 

Once Frank took his eyes off the man, he disappeared. Now Frank was watching the shadows around him, waiting to catch sight of a horned silhouette. 

By the time the sanctioned-off warehouse was coming into view, he had lost interest in locating his silent pursuer. To trip Matt up he’d need to take a detour to a more open area, a less dense part of the city where Frank would be able to see over the rooftop ledging. It simply wasn’t worth the effort to horse around with a man he didn’t quite consider a friend. 

Muddied snow weighed down his boots as he headed onward. By the time he reached his destination, the cold had woven its way into to his bones, and Frank was looking forward to the warmth he’d get from winding up the portable generator. When he opened the door, he was still focused on his own fantasy of warmth.

It didn’t surprise him to see that Matt was already inside the building when he entered, laying on the mattress as Karen sat beside him. 

“You’re lucky you’re bulletproof.” He threatened. “I need you to know that.”

“You had your chance Castle.”

Karen made a point of sighing. “Matt, you’re free to go if you want to. Foggy’s waiting for you.”

“Are you going to meet him with me?”

“No.”

Once the exchange had ended, the room fell silent, exacerbated by the sheer size of the warehouse interior. An odd feeling passed over Frank, as if he wasn’t  watching this affair from the doorway, but rather spying from afar. When Matt stood, he seemed almost small. His tail cracked like a whip, causing his entire frame to shake.

“Karen, he thought you were dead- I thought you were dead. It’s been months! Sometimes I wondered if I had-“ Matt trailed off.

Karen had jumped slightly when he’d raised his voice, and she wasn’t trying to argue any points of her own. Perhaps she’d been shocked into silence? More likely, she had nothing she wanted to say.

“Karen, I thought I’d killed you! When I came back- after it was inside me- I had to wipe blood off of myself. I thought some of it was yours, and Foggy hasn’t said it, but I know he’s thought about it. “ The blazing passion on Matt’s countenance mixed oddly with the clouded glaze over his eyes, aiming his outburst at nothing and everything at the same time.

She was still quiet. Frank wondered if she was feeling the same disconnect from reality that he was.

“Then, when I finally find you alive- you’re unrecognizable. It’s like you’re a different person, I just-“

That had set Karen into action.

“Oh! -I’m- unrecognizable- that’s incredible. You can’t tell me I’ve changed, you don’t know anything about me! Obviously, you have an idea of who I am, you think you know me, and you obviously want something from me- fuck- Matt. I don’t know what the hell you want.”

“I want to fix this!” Desperation grasped a hold on Matt’s voice.

“So you-“

At this point, Frank was absolutely through with the yowling match he was being held captive by, so he made the decision to end it then and there. 

“Why don’t the both of you Shut the Fuck up!” He yelled. “For fuck’s sake, if I have to move all this-“ he gestured towards his armory. “because you two idiots got the police called on us. I’m gonna be fucking pissed.”

The silence following his outburst was an immense relief. Neither party interjected as Frank pulled up a seat by the generator and pulled his breakfast from the cooler. He began to eat.

Matt laid down as the situation continued to deescalate. “I’m sorry. Do whatever you want to do, I don’t want to control you, I don’t think I can.” 

“I’ll catch up with you and Foggy, eventually.” Karen gingerly approached Matt’s slumped form, placing one hand on his bandaged shoulder and the other on his ear. “I’m not going to stay here either, I just wanted to help Castle with something personal to me-“

“That’s great. I’m really starting want you two gone.” Frank said between bites of damp sandwich. 

The two of them continued to speak, and they seemed to be disagreeing on a number of subjects. At the very least they were keeping it civil enough for Frank to forcibly tune out the conversation. 

Finally, Matt announced he was leaving. “You’re right, Foggy is waiting for me. I should be going.” With that, he left the same way Frank had entered. “Goodbye- for now.”


	11. Slight of Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like I’m finally wrapping everything up here. Feels good.  
> Certainly took me long enough, a few months from now, this fic’ll be a year old, oof.

Dried leaves and dirtied snow had covered every bench on the block. The buildup was far worse in the unpopulated alleyways of the city, leaving greyish mush on every flat surface. Defiant against nothing in particular, Foggy elected to sit on someone else’s porch stoop.

A woman passed him by, and handed him a poorly printed pamphlet, proclaiming in grungy black text ‘The Truth About Christmas’. Foggy squinted at it as he tried to recall whether it was November or December. He didn’t really intend to open the booklet, but he couldn’t be bothered to stand up on his still throbbing foot and find a garbage can to cram the paper into. So he folded it into his pocket, right alongside the ring he’d received earlier in the day. 

While retracting his hand from his trousers, he remembered: there was a magic ring in is pocket. The same thought would strike him anew once every fifteen minutes, and he hadn’t fully gotten used to the prospect. 

Magic ring. Fucking hell. What a world he lived in. What a time and a place to be alive.

The first half-hour of the day had been a chaotic ordeal, now that it had passed it was beginning to seem par for the course of the past two months. Longer than that, in all actuality. Normal had become a lawless larp a few years back, whenever he adjusted to a major change, a new disaster or miracle would blindside him from far beyond the depths of his imagination.

A man walked past, paying Foggy no mind. 

After that, Foggy wondered if he should head to an even more secluded area while he waited for Matt. 

If his foot wasn’t so sore, he might have actually made the effort. Instead he waited, occasionally shifting on his seat. Now and then he checked his phone to see if his new boss had left him any messages. He’d cast a glance behind him to make sure nobody was watching him sit on their porch.

The pervasive cold was doing his foot no favors. He was in the process of loosening his boot to look at the wound when he felt a wet clump of snow fall onto his head. 

Just perfect.

In a moment of frustration, he looked up. 

“Murdock, you’re a real bastard. You know that, right.”

Matt laughed. He was sprawled out on the building wall above Foggy, clinging to the piping of the windows with an inhuman grip. Something about the pose, with limbs akimbo and a coiling tail, made Foggy think of the dragon on the Qing Dynasty flag. He wondered where that comparison had come from. 

Surprisingly, Matt was unmasked, which seemed like a minor issue considering way things were, but he was also wearing casual clothes. Just a plain polo shirt and cotton pants- normal human clothing items, tailored for his shape. Foggy knew about Matt’s suitmaking acquaintances, but he hadn’t even considered that the group (or individual) was capable of making mundane, albeit oversized, clothing. 

“I’ve got something for you too, but if you’re gonna be a pain in the ass I won’t give it to you.” 

“Alright, alright, I’ll bite- what have you got in your pocket?” Matt dropped down from his perch with a loud thud.

“Hold out your hand.”

“Well now I’m downright nervous.” Matt said as he complied.

Foggy rummaged through his pocket, finding a pamphlet, spare change, and receipts in his pocket before managing to fish out the enchanted object. Again, the nature of the object hit him, and he was stifling a giggle as he pulled it into the light. The magic ring, in all its majesty, was actually rather plain, just a golden circle with a few diagonal divots on its outside.

He held it out to Matt and then cracked up at the sheer absurdity of the handoff.

“Is this a joke. I don’t w-“ Once the ring was in his hands, Matt stopped speaking. He repeatedly ran his thumb over it, flipping it over, and then clutching it tightly in his fist.

“Well put it on, before someone walks in on us.” Foggy urged.

Matt pulled the metal band over his finger, and then nothing happened.

Disappointment ran through Foggy’s mind, he’d gotten himself downright excited over that ring.

“Great, it’s a bust.” He said. “We broke it, or got scammed. Something like that.”

The snort that escaped Matt’s nostrils was entirely inhuman, loud, and accompanied by a cloud of steam. The white puff of air was just an effect of the weather, but it still managed to trick Foggy into thinking Matt was about to breathe fire. 

He felt like a real fool once he figured out what had actually happened.

“Just give it a chance Foggy. It’s not supposed to change me back.” The exhaustion in Matt’s voice was par for the course, especially given the circumstances.

“Fine. But I’m pissed for you, hell, you even got all dressed up for it.”

“I just wanted real clothes, I didn’t get this for today, I got it set up a while ago. More than one person was involved in the process-“

“And that’s bullshit, you know that’s bullshit. I just want one thing to go right for you.”

“A lot of things have been going right for me recently, especially considering what I got myself into.”

“Got yourself into-? Damnit Matt, I just got a spot at the Vance firm, and I was hoping- against all reason and logic- that you would too. But no, the magic ring doesn’t do anything, because it’s a magic ring and I have no idea how I could have expected it to do anything else.” As Foggy forcefully quelled his own outburst, he noticed something strange about Matt.

He just looked like Matt. Not that he looked human, or like anything else for that matter, but there was something there, standing next to him, and it amorphously resembled Mathew Murdock. The more he considered the shape, the harder it became to pinpoint.

“Are you feeling any different? Because I’m seeing a change, something like that. You’re really hard to look at.”

“No. Not really.” Came Matt’s articulate response.

The vaguely Matt-like form shivered, after that disturbance Foggy was beginning to see a pair of arms at Matt’s sides. 

“What did that do?” Asked Matt.

“I have no clue.” Foggy said. “Are you standing on two legs?”

Matt idled in place for a moment before speaking up. “I am now. What did that do?”

As far as Foggy could tell, Matt’s face was still at eye level with him. His neck had not moved, and the figure ahead of him had not gotten any taller.

“Nothing happened, but I think I might be getting a headache.”

While the duo considered this, they watched as a woman crossed onto the small street they’d bunkered down in. She walked past them without so much as a quizzical glance.

“Oh shit. She didn’t even notice you, did she-“ Foggy whispered, incredulity seeping into his tone.

“Could she see me? Am I even visible?”

“I mean, I can see you, but I’ve been here the full time. We should find a way to test it, maybe wait for the next poor sucker who passes by and make a show of being here.”

“What?”

“Like, we fake a yelling match or something, and then we watch how people react.”

Matt’s figure was now strictly humanoid in Foggy’s eyes, vague and incompressible, but still clear enough to make out Matt’s passive nod. 

—

Even in the heavy traffic parts of the city, Matt went entirely unnoticed. It wasn’t as if he was invisible, passerby simply did not care.

“Damnit asshole! Get you shit together!” Foggy decided to yell unprompted. 

Matt’s generic shape flinched in surprise, and heads swiveled to stare at the two of them, but nobody reacted with undue shock. After the outburst, people gave them a wider berth, but that was to be expected when one person screamed at the other in a public place.

“Foggy, please don’t do that again.” Matt said.

“You know why I did it- and you know what it means.” 

“It means you’re a dick?”

Foggy chose not to acknowledge the accusation. “You can go out in public again, I bet you could go back to work again.”

“I guess.” Matt ran the suggestion of a hand through the suggestion of red hair. “I just- It doesn’t feel like enough.”

Foggy responded with a grunt that was not entirely unkind.  “Don’t make me say ‘tough titty’, because I really get that this has to be even weirder for you- but come on man! If you don’t get back on your metaphorical feet now, who knows when you will. I don’t want to be your babysitter forever Matt.”

The last sentence might have been a bit low, but it felt necessary considering the circumstances. A pause followed Foggy’s words that gave both men fair time to consider what they were going to say next. It also gave them time to appreciate the light of the midday sun filtering through the clouds and catching in the ice around them.

“But you want me to work with you, in law, as your partner, again?”

“I do. That’s entirely different.”

Matt looked completely normal when he chucked. Not just normal, but exactly as he had before. “But you’re still carrying my ass. You always do.”

“It’s my lot in life. I’m just trying to lighten the load.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are a godsend, no matter their content.


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